The transfer of
Anheuser-Busch InBev’s U.S. marketing and sales offices from St. Louis to Manhattan this summer has gotten considerably frothier: A-B has put its sports agency in review.
Sources said that client work that has been under the aegis of Octagon, including the NFL, is part of the review, along with some additional responsibilities that will be outsourced after A-B completes its move this summer. Agencies competing for what must be considered the most important review of the year so far are Octagon, defending its incumbency, along with Wasserman Media Group, IMG and CAA.
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Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light brand has aimed for millennials with “Up for Whatever,” which has included Super Bowl parties and NFL-themed ads.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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Like so many marketers, A-B has been pursuing those infamously elusive millennial consumers with mixed results. Agencies are finding that the nation’s biggest brewery, long one of the biggest sports marketing spenders, is increasingly skeptical about the importance millennials place on sports. Accordingly, the review is “less about sports assets and activation and more about the best ways to sell beer to millennials,” said a senior agency source. So expect a considerably different approach when it comes to
marketing activation from whichever agency (or agencies?) wins the shootout.
We’re told that Lucas Herscovici, who heads media, digital, sports and entertainment at A-B as vice president of consumer connections — will make the final call on the review. A decision is expected next month.
> MILLER-SOTA: While we’re on the subject of suds marketing, MillerCoors has signed a 10-year founding partner deal with the new billion-dollar Minnesota Vikings stadium, scheduled to open in time for the 2016 NFL season. Those founding partner sponsorships have been priced in the low- to mid-seven figures per annum. One well-connected source told us that this contract was at the high end of that range.
The deal means Miller will continue as the Vikings’ exclusive beer sponsor, rights it has held since 2002. Not coincidental is the fact that the NFL’s beer sponsorship deal with Anheuser-Busch expires after two more NFL seasons, meaning the first season that could be played with MillerCoors as a new league sponsor (2017) would end with the Super Bowl in the new Minnesota facility. The 2019 NCAA men’s Final Four also will be played there.
> STILL FIZZING: When the NBA and Pepsi trumpeted their new five-year sponsorship in early April, the opposite and decidedly unequal response from Coca-Cola was to tout that brand’s new hookup with MLS. Decide for yourself if those properties are comparable. OK, that didn’t take long. But even more intriguing is word from a source involved in the deal who indicated that Coke’s interest in soccer here was not driven by a lust for MLS assets.
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New MLS sponsor Coke wanted to renew the Mexican national team.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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“The impetus for doing that deal was really renewing the Mexican national team [which also is sold by Soccer United Marketing],” said this source.
As for Coke’s nonrenewal with the NBA after 29 years? The same source said Coke and the NBA were close to a divorce as long ago as September. At the end of one meeting between the two last September, the relationship was referred to by one insider as “an old marriage, but one in need of counseling. … Anyone honest on Coke and the NBA could see it had run its course. And Ivan [Pollard, Coke’s senior vice president of global connections, investment and assets] is looking at everything with a different lens.”
Other sources added that after a series of marketing changes and personnel at Coke during the last eight or nine months, a new policy of “zero-based budgeting” sees mainstream ad expenditures winning out over sponsorship funding in most cases.
Team deals in the NBA between Coke and Pepsi are about even, but marketing rights for some franchises that don’t own an arena, like the Philadelphia 76ers and Boston Celtics, are available. We’ll be interested to see how valuable those rights are now.
> COMINGS & GOINGS: Matt Kauffman, head of sports and entertainment partnerships at Visa, has left to join Intel in a senior sponsorship role — which makes us wonder if that brand will be increasing spending there. Kauffman had been at Visa since 2004. … Former Pro Player president and Russell Athletic/Spalding CEO Doug Kelly has joined Denver-based fitness equipment manufacturer Rage Fitness/Gibson Athletic as CEO.
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
