New App Brings Consumers Beer At The Push of A Button

As mobile marketing and distribution matures, we can get a pretty decent glimpse of what the end goal is for companies with strong mobile marketing presences: control over all means of production, sale and distribution.

For some industries like fashion, where brands like American Eagle explore using geo-fencing and built-in customer interactions through the company app, this approach would be natural as an attempt to compete with e-commerce giants like Amazon and Google. Interestingly though, alcohol has been fairly late to the party, mostly because of various local and state laws that limit how much and what kinds of alcohol can be shipped through the mail and under what circumstances. This may soon change though, as yesterday (Jan. 15), Anheuser-Busch InBev announced that their “Bud Light Button” is now available to Washington, D.C., residents, allowing people to (theoretically) enjoy Bud Light from the comfort of their own home with just the push of a button on their smartphone.

The “Bud Light Button” is a fairly straightforward app that was made in conjunction with Klink Technologies, an alcohol delivery company known for its cautiousness regarding alcohol regulations in local areas. Simply push the button on the app, and a local retailer will deliver your Bud Light right to your door. At $10.99 for a 12 pack and $19.99 for a 24 pack, it may be a bit pricier than if it were bought in a store, but that difference is small when taking the price of the app and the costs to the delivery service into account.

This follows apps like Drizly, which serves as a one-stop shop for alcohol delivery without a specific brick-and-mortar operation attached to it, and MillerCoors’ big November giveaway of Miller Lite to anybody that used that app in several major U.S. cities. As laws relax, and more innovation in alcoholic e-commerce gets cranking without fears of being shut down by local authorities, we should see more breweries either teaming up with companies like Drizly or Klink, but also going out on their own to develop this technology in-house.