Beer

While some brewers are introducing new products to wake up flat sales in the beer category, the big chunk of prime-time TV advertising for the top three brewers still will be dedicated to bringing momentum back to core brands like Bud Light, Miller Lite and Coors Light.

Anheuser-Busch, which spent $453 million last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, has sworn to its wholesaler network that it will bury Miller Brewing. The No. 2 rival thrashed A-B with the "Good Call" campaign that ran during football season, where football referees penalized Bud and Bud Light drinkers for toting beer with "less taste and less flavor" than Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft. Then Miller ran comparison Lite ads against Bud Select even before that new product's national introduction in February.

A-B won't directly answer Miller's challenge as it did last year with creative, but it will spend significantly more on Bud Light ($155 million on TV last year and Sl70 million on all advertising, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus). Executives told wholesalers during the recent annual distributors conference that the No. 1 brew's CPM will be 40 percent to 50 percent more than Miller Lite's projected support ($147 million on...