Anheuser-Busch test-marketed a new soft drink for adults called Chelsea. The product was advertised as a “not-so-soft drink” that Anheuser-Busch hoped would become socially acceptable for adults. The advertisements featured no one under 25 years of age, and the product contained 0.5 percent alcohol (not enough to classify the product as an alcoholic beverage). The reaction in the test market was not what the firm expected or hoped for. The Virginia Nurses Association decided to boycott Chelsea, claiming that it “is packaged like a beer and looks, pours, and foams like beer, and the children are pretending the soft drink is beer.”

The Nurses Association claimed the product was an attempt to encourage children to become beer drinkers later on. The secretary of health, education and welfare urged the firm to “rethink their marketing strategy.” Others made similar protests. Although Anheuser-Busch reformulated the product and altered the marketing mix substantially, the product could not regain momentum and was withdrawn. Assuming Anheuser-Busch was in fact attempting to position Chelsea as an adult soft drink, which appears to have been its objective, why do you think it failed?