Opinion: Stella on the mend?

Back in January I had a right royal pop at InBev and especially Stella Artois.

The brand had just been delisted by Young's Pub Company and had produced a hugely over-the-top response - bordering on the childish.

It made great copy for me, and left the brewer with egg on its face. It was yet another sign, the industry said, of a once great brand losing its grip.

And the reaction to this negative press coverage was also striking. A number of retailers made gleeful mention of the coverage in meetings, phone calls and emails in the following weeks. It demonstrated the depths to which InBev's relationships and reputation had sunk.

However, the whispers around the camp fire this week are that things are starting to turn around for the beleaguered brand. One major pubco buyer told me that it has not so much been a difficult few months but a terrible couple of years for Stella; but in the last month or two things have really started to turn around.

Now what can we put this down to? While there has been some sunshine in this period to push footfall into pubs, there has also been some bloody awful weather too.

So it seems that the new chalice glass and the latest advertising campaign are beginning to have an impact with drinkers. They like the premium direction the innovation is trying to take the brand in.

I have no solid data to back up the industry whispers, so we cannot make a definitive call on this for a few months yet. But these positive signs must be a relief to InBev.