• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

Craft Brewing Business Craft Brewing Business
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment & Systems
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

How a group of Wisconsin MBA students helped revitalize an iconic Madison beer brand (Capital Brewery)

September 2, 2015Marguerite Darlington

WI School of Business Capital Brewery
True craft brewing business: Wisconsin School of Business Professor Tom O’Guinn (center), along with MBA student Tim Annis (left) and Richard King (right), one of the owners and founders of Capital Brewery.

Editor’s note: Big ole thanks to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business for letting us reproduce this. Check out the original story right over here.

One day Richard King, a shareholder and director at Capital Brewery, asked Thomas O’Guinn, professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin School of Business, if his MBA students would be interested in a project on beer.

O’Guinn said yes, but not for the obvious reasons.

“I’d been using Harvard-style case studies in my brand management class because my students want real-world experience, but they weren’t ideal,” O’Guinn said. “They’re usually fictionalized to a certain degree and I was never really happy with them as a teaching tool, so when Richard asked if we wanted to work on Capital Brewery, it seemed like a great opportunity.”

An established brand with new potential

Founded in 1984, Capital Brewery is one of the oldest craft breweries in Wisconsin. The Middleton-based business specializes in German-style lagers, and its beers have won both national and international competitions.

“Capital Brewery caught on and made money, but it never really got big because it was making craft beer,” said O’Guinn. “Craft beers were a small fraction of the national beer market until about 10 years ago. Now traditional big-brewer, big-brand beer sales are declining and craft beer sales are growing significantly, which means there’s a real opportunity to capture market share.”

“Microbrews were only 4 or 5 percent of the market share, and now in the North West, it’s 25 to 30 percent,” said Scott Wiener, president of Capital Brewery. “It’s a significant portion, and we need to be prepared.”

Now Capital Brewery is in a unique position — a known brand with an established local market share and name recognition that has the potential to capture a significant portion of the growth in the craft beer market. And that’s where the Wisconsin MBA students come in.

Tapping into the craft beer market

O’Guinn agreed to use Capital Brewery as a case study in his brand management class, but on the condition that the company open up its books completely — allowing students to see financial issues and manufacturing challenges and speak to distributors without fear of reprisal.

The leaders at Capital Brewery agreed, and O’Guinn’s MBA students began to research the company and the local and national markets to identify the best strategies for growth.

Early in the semester, the MBA students visited the brewery to tour the facilities, meet the staff and gain a first-hand understanding of the business and its challenges. After that, the students broke into eight groups and developed detailed recommendations based on conversations with King and president Scott Wiener about their business plan and model.

“They came up with really relevant stuff,” King said. “They have great professional experience, presentation skills and they’re part of the largest-growing demographic for craft beers, ages 25-34.”

The proposals identified several areas of opportunity for the brewery, based on both qualitative and quantitative data about the brand.

“One group identified the real problem with the target demographic,” O’Guinn said. “When they think of the Capital Brewery brand, they think older, not particularly hip. Another group identified heat maps on store shelves where shoppers look for beer. Another group talked to the distributors, segmented all of the different markets and figured out a plan for expanding.”

Now Capital Brewery is in a unique position — a known brand with an established local market share and name recognition that has the potential to capture a significant portion of the growth in the craft beer market.
Now Capital Brewery is in a unique position — a known brand with an established local market share and name recognition that has the potential to capture a significant portion of the growth in the craft beer market.

Classroom projects with real-world impact

At the end of the semester, Capital Brewery not only implemented many of the ideas that the students presented, but also offered jobs to some of the MBA students from the class.

Tim Annis (MBA ’16) says that knowing that his class work was going to be used to help a local business succeed in the real world motivated him to deliver his best work possible.

“Being able to apply the principles that we learned in our brand management class to a real brand was really interesting,” Annis said. “Sitting with O’Guinn’s class, we analyzed the cultural meaning of brands, and this project fit really well into discussions about community because there is a lot of local, regional pride around craft beer and Capital Brewery specifically.”

In fact, Annis was so inspired by the project that he joined the Capital Brewery team as a consultant, advising them on strategies to expand their distribution in nearby markets and targeting the millennial market.

“Last year, the brewery was flat, and we didn’t have a lot of growth,” King said. “Since then our sales have been up, both here and in the marketplace. The students had fun, I think they learned a lot, and we learned a lot.”

“The project went really well,” O’Guinn said. “In fact, there’s a billboard on University Avenue that came out of our MBAs working with a local ad agency. So you take a class, and by the end of the semester there’s a billboard on a major street that you drive by on your way to school. That’s about as real world as you can get.”

Marguerite Darlington is the managing editor of Update magazine at the Wisconsin School of Business.

Mobcraft
Crowdsourced beers? MobCraft builds inventory through customer submissions, votes
Ambergeddon long logo
Ale Asylum’s Dean Coffey dissects Ambergeddon ale
Take a look at Jack’s Abby’s renovated Beer Hall and its sweet new Tradition Meets Tech pilot system
4 steps to understanding the filtration process in craft beer

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. KCHopTalk says

    September 6, 2015 at 5:16 pm

    How a group of Wisconsin MBA students helped revitalize an iconic Madison beer brand http://t.co/7od6Numf1I

    Log in to Reply
  2. oliiolive says

    September 5, 2015 at 2:53 am

    RT https://t.co/yBBRdJ6F6P CaptainCheers: Wisconsin MBA students help revitalize Capital Brewery brand http://t.co/fHTtioHUmN

    Log in to Reply
  3. CaptainCheers says

    September 5, 2015 at 2:44 am

    Wisconsin MBA students help revitalize Capital Brewery brand http://t.co/SXHwbreUuC

    Log in to Reply
  4. Serge Lubomudrov says

    September 3, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    Serge Lubomudrov liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  5. Krones AG says

    September 3, 2015 at 6:21 am

    Krones AG liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  6. Jessica Harris says

    September 2, 2015 at 10:07 pm

    Jessica Harris liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  7. Sean Barnett says

    September 2, 2015 at 6:06 pm

    Sean Barnett liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  8. MidwestIRC says

    September 2, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: How a group of MBA students helped revitalize an iconic Madison beer brand @UWBusiness @CapBrew http://t.co/h1YQPk6F9H

    Log in to Reply
  9. LVRGLLC says

    September 2, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    #CraftBeer #CraftBrewing #Beer #BeerBiz How a group of Wisconsin MBA students helped revitalize an iconic Madison … http://t.co/PhYcaKpqTl

    Log in to Reply
  10. Brad Thomas says

    September 2, 2015 at 1:51 pm

    Brad Thomas liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  11. Jim Danger Fisher says

    September 2, 2015 at 1:51 pm

    Jim Danger Fisher liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  12. UWBusiness says

    September 2, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    @CraftBrewingBiz Thanks for spreading the word – we’re so proud of the work our @WisconsinMBA faculty and students are doing @CapBrew

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Stone Brewing teams with Sanuk for a lineup of summer sandals
  • Take a look at Jack’s Abby’s renovated Beer Hall and its sweet new Tradition Meets Tech pilot system
  • State of California Craft Beer: Covid recovery challenged by competition, consolidation
  • MicroStar Logistics launches Network Services Division to manage reusable plastic pallets for the beer Industry

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • Take a look at Jack’s Abby’s renovated Beer Hall and its sweet new Tradition Meets Tech pilot system
    March 27, 2023
  • CCBA California Craft Beer SummitState of California Craft Beer: Covid recovery challenged by competition, consolidation
    March 23, 2023
  • Koga-brothers-karben4Karben4 Brewing to relaunch Ale Asylum brand
    March 20, 2023
  • 4 steps to understanding the filtration process in craft beer
    March 20, 2023
  • newbelgium_2023_wildnectar-shopping-basket_family_IMG_2Beyond beer: Examples of craft breweries exploring canned cocktails
    March 16, 2023
  • brooklyn 35 featureBrooklyn Lager turns 35 and more beers to know this week
    March 14, 2023

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2023 · CBB Media LLC