Budweiser woes

[James]

The commercial aspects of the World Cup interest me, and the troubles experienced by Budweiser with regard to their sponsorship of the thing bring me constant unmitigated joy.


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Before it knew the games were to be played in Deutschland, Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser, paid $40 million for the World Cup beer monopoly. Unfortunately, Germans don't like the beer. They call it Spülwasser, which roughly translates as dishwater.

I'd have gone for Scheisswasser myself

In addition, there already is a comparable product in Germany, so the American company is not allowed to use its own name. The company must sell its product, the most popular beer in America, under the awkward label of "Anheuser-Busch Bud," and it had to negotiate even for that. Germany's Bitburger beer is known as Bit, and the authorities ruled that Bit, a name close to Bud, had the name first. So Anheuser-Busch has paid all that money for a monopoly that has taken away its name and could trigger a demonstration or even rioting by furious spectators faced with no choice but to go dry or drink dishwater.

This is the merchandising event from hell. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, with no other remotely close to it, and if any rioting or other negative manifestations were to take place, they would be seen by a gigantic, worldwide TV audience. There's a poke in the eye for a company that has spent the past 156 years and probably $5 or $6 billion promoting itself as the best there is.

Poor No-Name Anheuser-Busch may have panicked at the thought of fans, enraged at being offered nothing but Spülwasser, rioting to end the beer monopoly. For whatever reason, the company made a deal with Bitburger beer. If it could call itself Anheuser-Busch Bud, Bitburger would be allowed to sell its brew in the stadiums--but only in logo-free paper cups.

The Nation

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Adding insult to injury:

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"We respect the Germans' pride in their beer," said Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch. "But we are proud of Budweiser and what it's about. We think this is about giving consumers a choice."

AJC.com

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And just what is Budweiser about?


And again:
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The difficulty seems to be that for many a beer drinker, Bud is all but tasteless. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bud has been made blander and blander over the years to appeal to a wider and wider public.
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Incidentally, Munich airport has a sex shop in the duty free area!

[GregClow]

The difficulty seems to be that for many a beer drinker, Bud is all but tasteless. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bud has been made blander and blander over the years to appeal to a wider and wider public.

I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. Although I read somewhere recently that A-B has actually been increasing its flavour/hoppiness slightly over the last couple of years, partially in response to the increased popularity of more flavourful craft brews.

[pootz]

Peddling Bud in Germany is like selling sno cones to Eskimos.

What really blows my mind is that Corporate Beer marketing mentality still clings to the myth that you can sell crap to anyone if the hype is turned up loud enough.

Right Frank?

[Tapsucker]

That's a pretty big financial blow. Not just the marketing money they paid, but the loss of the target market.

Pro sports fans are about the biggest sucker consumers out there. Fiercely loyal (aka fanatical), willing to spend stupidly (supporting professional athlete/entertainers) and totally tribal. These are a product marketer's dream clients. Losing that opportunity for a product tie-in is like Bin Laden losing religion as an excuse.

[Belgian]

This is huge anti-propaganda that Annheuser-Busch has brought upon itself (I won't even say "Budweiser" because in Germany that name truly means only the genuine article Czech beer (that name AB stole is actually a Germanicized pronounciation of the beer "Budejovicke Budvar", connecting the beer name with the town that originally made & still produces it today, namely Ceske Budejovicke in Bohemia CZ - so try convincing Germans otherwise, AB!)

Staggering how AB could internationally expose their non-appeal among Germans (a nation of "real beer" people) and do so wide open in the public media. Can AB not be clever enough to know, deep down at heart they peddle watery junk, and protecting this great secret from such public ridicule is of great importance to their amazing success?

Or is their cult-ish belief in the 'quality' of AB 'Bud' so hypnotizing for they themselves that they could not do the 'research' of the German market to know the damage this move would cause? Sounds like too many unquestioning boot-lickers in the organization, and not enough corporate wiliness.

Hmm, will Budweiser be the next MacDonalds, posting losses when the shine is off the Marque one day... Ahh I suspect too many Americans/ Irish/ what-have-yous could care less what the Germans think of AB 'Bud", so all this will blow over & be Business As Usual for A-B's principal markets.
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Real Budweiser as accepted by Germans (AKA "Budejovicke Budvar") is of course sold at LCBO and Beer stores under the modified name "Czechvar" & is well recommended as a good balanced pilsener-type lager.

[pootz]

That's a pretty big financial blow. Not just the marketing money they paid, but the loss of the target market.

Pro sports fans are about the biggest sucker consumers out there. Fiercely loyal (aka fanatical), willing to spend stupidly (supporting professional athlete/entertainers) and totally tribal. These are a product marketer's dream clients.

Steelback is heavy into harvesting this demographic but it seems, even as "tribal" and "sucker-prone" that they are to bombastic team-based promo/hype, they still can't sell a Steelback in Argo stadium after the fan complaints when they did.

[JerCraigs]

Someone implied that A-B would have bought the rights prior to it being known that it would be in Germany?

[Philip1]

It got even worse on Friday when approx. 900 Dutch fans wearing Bavaria beer shorts in Holland colours were forced to hand in their shorts at the gate and watch the match in their underwear! This is probably more FIFA's fault but it's sure making Bud look bad.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=891562006

[Steve Beaumont]

Far be it from me to step up in defense of A-B, but I think that a couple of points are being missed here:

1) There are tens of thousands of non-Germans in the stands eagerly guzzling glasses of Bud (okay, it may be Bittburger in Bud glasses, but the visual effect on television is the same); and
2) To the millions upon millions of people hanging on every game, the visuals they see are Bud and only Bud, which is what the marketing is really about.