Anheuser-Busch Marketing
Budweiser American-style lager was born out of exceptional brewing expertise, and its emergence as one of the world’s most recognized global brands is based on the marketing and advertising of brand attributes consistent since day one – quality, heritage, innovation.
When it comes to building a brand from the ground up, or growing an established member of the Anheuser-Busch family of beers, the 130-year-old brewery’s marketing teams excel at defining the concept, identifying the brand’s growth opportunities, and creating the perfect marketing and media mix to maximize public exposure and affinity for the brand.
Founder Adolphus Busch was not only a pacesetter in the technical and scientific development of the brewing industry, but he was also a master at advertising and promoting his products. One of the advertising techniques he pioneered in the 1880s was the giveaway – small, inexpensive but utilitarian items that would help keep the Anheuser-Busch name or logo constantly on the mind of potential customers. Unquestionably the most popular giveaway was the Adolphus Busch pocketknife – bone or pearl-handled, etched with colorful gold, red and green barley and hop vine designs, adorned with the A&Eagle trademark and complete with a peephole that revealed a portrait of the beer baron.
Adolphus’ heirs inherited the Busch patriarch’s zeal for astute marketing, the most notable and longest-running campaign being the world famous Budweiser Clydesdales. The iconic eight-horse hitch, first introduced by August Busch Jr. in 1933 to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition, represents Budweiser at fairs and festivals, parades and sporting events across the nation, and is admired by millions of adoring fans annually. The six Budweiser Clydesdales hitches travel to more than 1,000 events annually, and with each parade mile traveled by the majestic horses and their gold and red antique beer wagon, the Budweiser brand image grows stronger.
At a time when the brewing industry was recovering from the knockout punch of Prohibition, the Budweiser Clydesdales became not only a symbol of Budweiser, but a symbol of American perseverance.
The same brand-building principles apply to Bud Light. First tested in 1981 as a challenger to competing light beer brands, Bud Light grew exponentially due to consumers’ affinity for anything Budweiser and a sound brand-building strategy that saw Bud Light become the preferred beverage of 21-25 year-old beer drinkers nationwide. By 1994, Bud Light had become the No. 1 light beer in the U.S., and less than 10 years later, became the No. 1 beer brand in the world.
Over the past 30 years, one of the most successful ways Budweiser and Bud Light have solidified their brand image is through sports sponsorships. Anheuser-Busch’s flagship family is recognized as one of the world’s foremost sports sponsors, touting relationships with Major League Baseball, the NHL, NBA, 28 NFL teams, Major League Lacrosse, the PGA and LPGA, NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne, and the U.S. Olympic Team, along with local and regional sponsorships with popular lifestyle sports such as surfing, beach volleyball, bass fishing, skiing and snowboarding events. Budweiser and Bud Light also sponsor more than 92 percent of American sports facilities and 89 percent of major league sports teams. Budweiser’s global loyalty is boosted by associations with some of the most admired and respected sporting events in the world, including the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup and many National Olympic Committees.
Budweiser and Bud Light have also applied significant brand building muscle to more traditional advertising, such as radio, print, outdoor and television campaigns. Anheuser-Busch advertising has produced some of the industry’s most memorable and appreciated campaigns. Recent successes like Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” – a two-time Cannes Lions Radio Grand Prix winner, Budweiser’s Emmy-nominated television ads “Born A Donkey” and “Applause,” and impactful outdoor video boards in high-traffic locations such as Times Square and Sunset Boulevard continue to keep Anheuser-Busch brands top-of-mind with consumers.
For Budweiser, the message is often about heritage and quality; for Bud Light, fun, sociability and humor. No forum is bigger than the Super Bowl when it comes to measuring advertising success, where Anheuser-Busch’s notoriously entertaining efforts have been judged the most popular for 10 consecutive years by respected consumer and media polls. Coupled with the local advertising and point-of-sale efforts of its wholesaler network, Anheuser-Busch brands are by far the most widely recognized in the industry.
More recently, Anheuser-Busch has found “underground” success for advertising through the Internet and social media. Internet advertising is subtle compared to its over-the-air cousin – subtle, humorous, and edgy – enough to make a viewer voluntarily share it with a friend. Two Internet-only short videos – “Swear Jar” and “Dude” – were quietly seeded on Anheuser-Busch web sites in 2007. Within weeks of their respective launch, the spots had garnered more than a million views, were posted on hundreds of Web sites, and, in the sincerest form of flattery, had spawned dozens of viral video spoofs – proof that brand affinity for Budweiser and Bud Light prompts people to act.
For more information on Anheuser-Busch marketing, visit www.anheuser-busch.com.