Miller Brewing executives promoted CEO Adami to oversee operations of Americas brands

Jul. 18--Norman Adami, a South African import who led a revival for Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co., received a promotion Monday, leaping from Miller president/CEO to a new position overseeing Miller and beer operations in South America for corporate parent SABMiller Plc.

Adami's new job is president and chief executive officer of SABMiller Americas. It includes overseeing Miller Brewing, SABMiller's soft drink bottling group in Central America and also includes Bavaria, a Colombia-based brewer that SABMiller bought less than a year ago. Bavaria is the second-largest brewer in Latin America.

London-based SABMiller, one of the world's largest brewing conglomerates, now draws 40% of its sales volume and 50% of its revenue from the Americas, said Miller spokesman Pete Marino. Adami will continue to be based in Milwaukee, Marino said.

Taking Adami's place is Tom Long, a soft drink executive who came to Miller one year ago as the brewer's chief marketing officer.

Long will become president and chief executive officer of Miller as the nation's No. 2 brewer enjoys continued growth of Miller Lite -- while also dealing with lagging sales among many of its other brands, including High Life, Genuine Draft and Milwaukee's Best.

Long, in turn, hired Randy Ransom, a beverage industry veteran, to take his place as Miller's chief marketing officer and executive vice president.

"These management changes are the culmination of three years of deliberate work to build a strong management team at Miller," Adami said, in a statement. "I am confident that this leadership team will step up our game at Miller."

Long, in a statement, said Adami had restored Miller "as a truly competitive player in the American beer industry." Long said the new management team at Miller will help the company "step up to the next level."

The hiring of Long and Ransom drew praise from Tom Pirko, who operates Bevmark LLC, a beverage industry consulting firm in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Fresh ideas

Both men, Pirko said, will likely bring badly needed fresh ideas to Miller. Pirko said their soft drink backgrounds will be valuable, noting that soft drink sales have increased at a higher rate than beer sales over the past several years.

"They've created a much better portfolio of talent at Miller so that Norman (Adami) can be freed up to work on larger strategic issues for the Americas," said Harry Schumacher, publisher of Beer Business Daily, a Web-based trade publication. "Now they just need to create a stronger portfolio of brands."

Long, 47, has strong sales experience, and has worked in more than 60 countries, Marino said.

Long served as president of Coca-Cola Co.'s northwest Europe division, the company's largest division on that continent and the third-largest division in the company worldwide. He joined Coca-Cola in 1988, and worked there until last July, when he was hired by Miller.

Ransom served as vice president of portfolio strategy for Coca-Cola North America before serving as president of ConvergencePoint Group, a business consulting firm that focuses on cross-cultural marketing. Before joining Coca-Cola, Ransom was director of international business development for Femsa, the Mexican beverage company that includes Dos Equis among its brands.

Adami, 51, came to Miller in January 2003, less than a year after the company was sold to South African Breweries, which was then renamed SABMiller. Adami immediately set about to revive Miller, the victim of declining market share over a period of several years.

Adami quickly became known for his blunt approach.

After Miller cut its headquarters staff and reorganized its sales force in August 2003, Adami talked about a need to revive the company's corporate culture. The previous mind set at Miller, he said, rewarded all management workers in roughly the same manner -- which Adami dubbed "the Socialist Republic of Miller."

"We've got to break out of the cycle of a tolerance for mediocrity," Adami said then. "It's about instilling a will to win."

Around that same time, Miller Lite, which accounts for 40% of Miller's sales volume, began to show signs of revival.

By 2002, Miller Lite had achieved the dubious distinction of being the only major light beer brand that sold fewer barrels that year than 10 years prior.

In 2004, Miller Lite's sales increased 10.5% -- even as the nation's overall beer market increased just 0.6% that year. The brand's sales volume increased 3.1% in 2005.

Miller's other major brands continue to have either flat or declining sales. Last year, the company's overall sales volume dropped 0.8%, despite the increase recorded by Lite, according to trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights.

Sparks purchase

Earlier this year, Miller launched an aggressive new campaign to reposition Miller Genuine Draft as a more sophisticated mainstream beer for drinkers with maturing tastes -- a shift from past attempts to sell Genuine Draft with conventional humor.

The company also dropped its long-running "High Life Man" campaign for Miller High Life in favor of atmospheric spots, featuring narration by the brand's "Girl in the Moon" character, that try to link the beer to nostalgic moments, both historic and personal.

With Milwaukee's Best, the company has stuck to more conventional, humor-driven beer ads. But Miller also made greater marketing investments in the brand, and in Milwaukee's Best Light, in hopes of capturing price-sensitive drinkers looking for cheaper beer.

Buys beverages

Finally, Miller made a surprise announcement two weeks ago that it had agreed to buy Sparks, a citrus-flavored malt drink with caffeine, and Steel Reserve, a sweetened malt liquor, from McKenzie River Corp. for $215 million. SABMiller also will form a partnership with McKenzie River, a San Francisco beverage marketing firm, to develop other new products.