This paper analyzes Anheuser-Busch's public relations and marketing campaigns for Budweiser, tracing the brand's advertising history from its 19th-century origins to modern multi-platform campaigns. It explores how the company uses emotional appeals, outdoor advertising, Super Bowl placements, and internet marketing to build brand loyalty. The paper critically examines the alcohol industry's targeting of adolescents, the effectiveness of cautionary disclosures and warning labels, the role of corporate versus brand-level advertising knowledge, and the ethical and regulatory challenges surrounding alcohol marketing to underage consumers. Drawing on advertising research, consumer behavior theory, and industry data, the paper assesses the tension between commercial objectives and public health responsibility.
Do I love beer? My favorite brand is by far Anheuser-Busch's top-selling brand — Budweiser. Or do I love beer? I just saw two lizards on a cable channel tell me that Budweiser is what I crave. Anheuser-Busch must continuously expand sales so that the corporation meets both Wall Street's and its shareholders' expectations for continued corporate profits. They are not, in fact, merely expectations — they are demands for continued corporate profits. It is therefore crucial to Anheuser-Busch to convince consumers worldwide that not only do they love beer, but that they love Budweiser or one of the many Anheuser-Busch products.
It is troubling that advertising to minors is often part of those public relations marketing campaigns. As researchers have noted, "youth has its hazards. Cautioning adolescents about product dangers is a unique challenge for advertisers and policy makers. Given the current controversy surrounding the advertising and sale of tobacco and alcohol products to adolescents, it is important to understand how that audience attends to advertising for such products and associated cautionary statements" (Fox). Similar to the "Joe Camel" marketing tactics perpetrated by the tobacco industry, alcoholic beverage companies also do their best to attract the adolescent dollar. "The teenage market in the United States is extremely lucrative. Teens are fashion and status conscious, and spend large amounts of money on clothing and entertainment. In addition to influencing household purchases, teenagers spend at least $95 billion a year. The fact that many brand loyalties begin during adolescence and last through adulthood makes the group even more important to marketers" (Fox).
Budweiser is a quality product — at least that is what we are told. "At Anheuser-Busch, quality is more than a goal...it is a way of life. Quality doesn't just happen. An unwavering commitment to quality is at the heart of how Anheuser-Busch has done business since 1852. Then, as now, it is the key to our success and will continue to be in the future" (Anheuser-Busch Companies). With that claim in mind, it is worth examining the finer details of the alcoholic beverage industry's public relations marketing campaigns.
Like most companies with a product to sell, Anheuser-Busch has historically been an organization that advertised heavily. In the 1840s, two ambitious brewers toiled and eventually created the powerful and respected Anheuser-Busch brewery. "Eberhard Anheuser had bought out a Bavarian Brewery, and with that the stage was set for the entrance of the principal actor in the great drama of beer" (Holland). His son-in-law, "Adolphus Busch came to St. Louis equipped with a sound training at the Gymnasium in Mainz. He was the youngest of twenty-one children. His arrival was inconspicuous, but he soon made his presence felt" (Holland). From the beginning, competition in the brewing industry was fierce and, at times, cutthroat.
In the 1850s, large kegs were the only way to deliver beer to the numerous saloons, and Anheuser-Busch was compelled to offer marketing incentives — including outright bribes — to have their kegs accepted over competitors' brands. Entering new neighborhoods required large-scale advertising campaigns to win over local consumers, and marketing expenditures of various kinds were considered the cost of doing business.
Bottling provided both a solution to keg delivery challenges and an opportunity to expand revenues. Budweiser was not the first bottled beer in the world, but it was among the first bottled beers intended for wide-scale shipping. "Returning to America, he had the Busch brewery make the beer for him and called it Budweiser after the town of Budweis, where he had discovered it. He bottled the new drink in his own small shop" (Holland).
By 1855, Budweiser had become the best-bottled beer in the country. "While his rivals in St. Louis were struggling with wagon-load orders, he coolly turned his back on the local market, invested deeply, and set out as a traveling ambassador of beer. He scoured the nation, and eventually the world, everywhere preaching the gospel of Budweiser. His work was done magnificently. In a few years, the trade of the United States was predominantly in the hands of Anheuser-Busch" (Holland).
Budweiser became the brewery's flagship product, allowing the company to reduce its portfolio from sixteen brands to four — Michelob, Faust, Budweiser, and a standard pale beer. "Michelob was perhaps the best beer ever made in America and the most expensive; it sold for twenty-five cents a glass. Like Budweiser, it originated in Bohemia, but in this case it was Adolphus himself who found it" (Holland).
Today, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. is the holding company parent of Anheuser-Busch, Incorporated (ABI). The company is also the parent corporation to a number of subsidiaries. Its operations include domestic beer, international beer, packaging, entertainment, theme parks, real-estate, manufacturing, transportation, and recycling. The domestic beer segment comprises all United States beer manufacturing and wholesale operations, while the international beer segment consists of export sales and overseas beer production and marketing operations.
Financially, Anheuser-Busch has been an extremely solvent entity. "For the three months ended 3/31/03, net sales rose 5% to $3.28 billion. Net income rose 6% to $484.8 million. Revenues reflect growth in both domestic and international beer sales. Earnings reflect lower brewing material and energy costs, reduced aluminum prices, and improved operating margin" (Yahoo Finance).
According to Anheuser-Busch's corporate communications, the company's public relations marketing premise rests on the cumulative effect of all its products and the public's response to each one. The company forecasts how a campaign concept will succeed by examining the smaller elements of previous product themes rather than treating each product as a whole. Those elements include identifying the specific effects each component will have in directing a concept, then building the public relations campaign around the results. Central among those questions is whether a campaign has emotional strength — meaning a sense of understanding and connection with the target audience. Emotion functions as a tool for securing media placements, shaping decision-making, generating product awareness, building audience interest, increasing audience response, and making the target audience feel that the message was designed specifically for them. This element-based approach has been extremely successful for Anheuser-Busch.
A sound public relations campaign must also carry a message that the target audience can relate to — one that rises above the ordinary while still answering the basic who, what, when, and where questions. Crucially, the campaign must fulfill the "what action is needed" component for the target audience. One consistent theme in past Budweiser commercials is clear: Anheuser-Busch wants its audience to buy Budweiser. More recently, however, the company has begun incorporating public service announcements to demonstrate that issues such as drunk driving, adolescent consumption, and alcohol-related birth defects are concerns shared by the company's leadership. Another long-standing approach has been the use of brand-naming tactics that leverage corporate advertising knowledge to reinforce brand recognition. When corporate branding and brand knowledge are retained as a single knowledge base, corporate advertising can directly shape brand perception.
"Media channels, budgets, and digital age challenges"
"Youth exposure, teen drinking statistics, and regulatory failures"
"Brand vs. corporate advertising risks and positioning conflicts"
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Steinbock, Dan. The Birth of Internet Marketing Communications. Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books, 2000.
Yahoo Finance. Yahoo. 4/28/03.
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