A-B InBev reacquired NFL league rights in 2011 for more than $1 billion.getty images
When InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch in 2008 for $52 billion, groans could be heard across the U.S. sports and media landscape. A-B was sports’ sugar daddy, investing more in media and sponsorship than any other brand. Now it would go through the problematic transition from family owned to publicly held company. And InBev had a reputation for cutting costs while building the world’s largest beer company through mergers and acquisitions.
Indeed, many domestic jobs were eliminated, but the sports investment remained strong. A-B InBev U.S. Sports Chief Nick Kelly said the company is now spending more than twice as much on sports as it was before the acquisition.
The company has maintained a leadership position among all sports sponsors by pioneering efforts in the use of active athletes in advertising and through a unique sponsorship incentive model, through which properties get bonuses if they meet or exceed certain goals. Key indicators of A-B InBev’s sports intentions included reacquiring NFL league rights in 2011 after a 10-year lapse, and subsequently extending those rights through 2022. Both deals were for more than $1 billion.
“After the acquisition, wholesalers were nervous about that and Wall Street kept asking that same question,’’ said former A-B sports and media head Tony Ponturo, who left the brewer after it was sold. “Getting back the NFL told everyone where they were heading.’’
5 billion
Number of social media impressions for Budweiser during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the most of any brand in the world.
Marquee activations like turning a cruise ship into the “Bud Light Hotel” during Super Bowl week, and maintaining its spend with teams and at new venues also sent a strong sign. There would be no cutback on sports.
“Beer is social,” said Kelly, “and sports are still a great opportunity to sample and activate at retail.’’
After the merger, industry observers noted some initial marketing inconsistency until 2014, when the company moved its sales and marketing from its hometown of St. Louis to New York City. A few years later, Marcel Marcondes was named U.S. CMO.
There have been advances in social and digital marketing, and an unprecedented ability to get things done fast, like the World Series ads featuring the late Harry Caray calling the last out a day after the Chicago Cubs triumphed in 2016. Other creative triumphs included Bud Light’s “Dilly Dilly” campaign; promotional winners like the beer fridges across Cleveland that remained locked until the Browns won a game; and the billion-plus cans produced with NFL team logos on them.
“For A-B, it’s not been about spending the most, but doing the most with those rights,” said John Tatum, founder/CEO of Genesco Sports Enterprises, which over the past quarter-century has worked with Miller, MillerCoors and more recently with A-B InBev. “They understood that beer and sports is an unbreakable bond, so as that category, and even the media landscape, have been shifting drastically, they’ve maintained position and relevance.’’
The January launch of Bud Light-branded hard seltzer and the shift of former VP of Marketing Joao Chueiri to the new position of VP of marketing for beyond beer presages challenges that A-B In-Bev will face in the 2020s.
“We’ll always be about beer, but our total alcohol portfolio is key as consumer tastes change,’’ said Kelly.
