"Brian Burger" wrote in message
.tc.ca...
I was in the UK in 2000; and Foster's was the beer of choice... OK,
"Australia's Finest" is slightly better than Bud, but not by much, and
there're so many good local beers - why Fosters, for Dog's sake?

People drink Fosters because it's pretty much the same as any
other lager and it's cheaper.

The UK has gone through a bit of a crisis a "real ale" over the past
few decades. It's still happening and getting worse. It's like how
someone described the large breweries taking over due to their
marketing in the US. A lot of the smaller breweries here have been
taken over by the big ones and either completely closed or their
most popular brews discontinued.

Young people now drink lager. Real ale has an image problem, it's
seen as the drink of old men sitting around in a near empty pub.

A lot of advertising is done by the lager producers and as a result,
pretty much all young people, and many older people drink either
Carlsburg or Stella Artois...traditional but "trendy" foreign lagers.
Stella, in particular, has a good advertising campaign where the
lager is portrayed to be very expensive and highly prized, coupled
with its Belgian heritage. You can see their latest ad here (which
brings this back on topic if you watch the ad!).
http://www.stellaartois.co.uk/ and click on "advertising".

As far as I can recall, the only television advertising I can remember
for "real beer" was for John Smiths and for Worthingtons but neither
are/were very consistent.

Guinness advertising is another matter entirely.

Paul