The Super Bowl is one of the most anticipated and most watched events in the United States.
With about one hundred million viewers, this annual NFL championship game has become a
jackpot for advertisers who have deep pockets.
In fact, ads have become such a big part of the Super Bowl experience that people actually
look forward to the creativity put into these short commercials.
One company that owes a significant amount of its success to its decades-long partnership
with the Super Bowl, is the popular beer manufacturer, Anheuser-Busch.
Anheuser-Busch started off as a small, struggling brewery in Missouri.
It grew to become the largest manufacturer of beer in America.
Now, as a part of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the company produces Budweiser, the most valued
brand of beer in the world, with a worth of more than $14 billion.
This is the story of Anheuser-Busch and their lucrative partnership with the Super Bowl.
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Difficult Beginnings The story of Anheuser-Busch begins almost
two centuries ago in St. Louis, Missouri.
George Schneider, a German American brewer and saloon operator opened a brewery known
as the Bavarian Brewery in South St. Louis.
The brewery which began operations in 1852 seemed to be doing well.
In 1856, it even expanded its business into a new brewery.
Unfortunately, this success turned out to be short-lived.
Just the next year after its expansion, George Schneider’s brewery ran into some financial
difficulties.
Left with hardly any other option, George eventually sold it.
But the brewery still wasn’t doing great, even after the sale.
Eventually, in 1860, it was sold once again to a local pharmacist named William D’Oench
and a German-born soap manufacturer named Eberhard Anheuser.
Under its new ownership, the brewery was known as E. Anheuser & Co. for a few years, after
which its name was changed to E. Anheuser Company’s Brewing Association.
With a new name and new owners, this little neighborhood brewery finally began to get
back on its feet.
Even though it managed to escape from the clutches of bankruptcy, the brewery wasn’t
exactly on the path to becoming the brewery that it is now.
At least not until one man came on the scene.
His hard work and innovative mindset paved the way and gave this little brewery a much
needed push, setting it on its way to becoming the industry leader that it is today.
This man’s name was Adolphus Busch.
The King of Beers Adolphus Busch was the husband of Eberhard
Anheuser’s daughter Lilly.
He served in the American Civil War and then began working in the Anheuser brewery as a
salesman.
Up to this time, D’Oench, the local pharmacist who was the co-owner of the brewery had been
a silent partner in the business.
In 1869, he sold his half of the company to Busch who then became the company’s secretary.
Busch became the pioneer in the use of various innovative techniques which would eventually
become industry standard.
He was the first beer manufacturer to use mechanical refrigeration and refrigerated
railroad cars to transport beer.
He introduced these methods in 1867 and by the next year, the company owned a fleet of
40 refrigerated railroad cars.
Busch’s company was also the first American Brewery to keep their beer fresh using pasteurization.
With longer-lasting beer and a fleet of railroad cars to transport their products, the company’s
reach was vastly expanded leading to an increase in demand for their products.
The company followed suit, expanding their facilities and increasing production from
31,500 barrels to over 200,000 between 1875 and 1881.
Sometime during the 1870s, Adolphus Busch went on a tour of Europe to study the new
developments in brewing methods that were sprouting up at that time.
He took interest in the successful pilsner beer.
Busch was particularly drawn to a type that was brewed in Budweis, Czech Republic.
In 1876, the ambitious young man introduced the Budweiser beer into the United States,
marketing it as a “premium” beer.
With its developed transport and preservation methods, the company was able to transform
Budweiser into the first nationally selling beer in the United States.
The company became incorporated in 1879 and its name was changed to Anheuser-Busch Brewing
Association.
The next year, Eberhard Anheuser died and Adolphus Busch became the president of the
company.
As president, Busch wasn’t planning on slowing down his efforts to expand the market of his
company.
He began to invest in advertisement campaigns and marketing giveaways with items such as
bottle openers, corkscrews, and postcards.
One of the most popular giveaway items was a lithograph print of a painting by a local
artist.
More than one million copies were produced and it became one of the most popular pieces
of artwork in American history.
The advertising tactics worked and demand continued to grow and in return, Anheuser-Busch
continued to expand and increase production.
By 1907, the company produced 1.6 million gallons of beer.
That’s 528 million standard beer bottles; enough to give 5 bottles to each person living
in America at that time, and there would still be some left over.
Impressive right?
But even with such successful marketing, the best and most profitable of the company’s
advertising moments were yet to come.
Anheuser-Busch and The Super Bowl Anheuser-Busch has always been a company that
knows the value of good marketing.
Its business model involves heavy investments into advertising and publicity in general.
These methods worked so well that by 1957, the company had become the largest brewer
in the United States.
Since the 1970s, Anheuser-Busch has run ads during the popular Super Bowl, taking advantage
of the extremely wide reach that the game has.
For decades, Budweiser has been a familiar Super Bowl fixture, and its parent company
held a long-term contract with the NFL allowing it to buy several slots of air time during
the Super Bowl each year at a steep discount, regardless of what TV station is broadcasting
the game.
For over 20 years, the company held exclusive rights to national beer commercials in the
Super Bowl.
After it was bought by a brewing company named InBev in 2008 the company, now named Anheuser-Busch
InBev, maintained its dedication to excellent advertising.
In 2010, the company’s beer brand name Bud Light paid $1billion for a six-year licensing
deal with Super Bowl.
The company buys multiple commercial slots in each game, for its different brands, Budweiser
and Bud Light being the most popular.
Two years later, in 2012, the company spent $449 million – a third of its US marketing
budget – to advertise the Budweiser brand.
This made it the most advertised drink brand in the United States.
Even though the company spends millions of dollars for air time during the Super Bowl,
it’s definitely worth it.
Budweiser has been estimated to earn about $96 million extra from their Super Bowl ads
which is a return of over 150% on their ad investment.
But the Budweiser brand isn’t just about spending big bucks on ads, they have a very
strategic approach when it comes to advertising and they use their 30-60 seconds of air time
to the max.
Their successful advertising efforts don’t start or end at dishing out millions of dollars
for a couple of seconds on air.
Each ad represents several months of research, hours and hours of planning by marketing experts,
preparation and filming.
Legendary Commercials While the majority of brands that advertised
during the Super Bowl used to focus on broadcasting funny ads, Budweiser decided to go in a whole
other direction.
They harnessed the power of storytelling to form emotional connections with viewers.
Rather than focusing on the benefits of the drink, Budweiser commercials focus on events
and on human and animal characters like the Budweiser Clydesdales, that people can relate
to on a deep, emotional level.
These marketing efforts have created videos that went way beyond commercials and even
became part of popular culture.
One of the first of Budweiser’s most memorable ad campaigns first appeared during Super Bowl
XXIX (29) in 1995, featuring three incredibly lifelike puppet frogs named Bud, Weis, and
Er.
This commercial has been described as one of the “most iconic alcohol campaigns in
advertising history.”
And it is often listed among the best Super Bowl Commercials ever.
The brilliant 30-second film was an immediate hit and soon spread beyond the borders of
America, becoming familiar even among beer drinkers in other countries.
In 1999, Budweiser first aired the “Whassup” ad campaign which turned out to be an unquestionable
success.
It became a pop culture phenomenon, making its way into memes, skits, TV shows, movies
and basically going viral all over the world – even in countries where Budweiser wasn’t
sold.
It seemed like everyone was saying it – beer drinkers and non-beer drinkers alike.
This campaign painted Budweiser as a cooler brand, opening it up to an even wider audience.
Several Budweiser ads have been aired over the decades, tugging at people’s heartstrings
and leaving a lasting impression of the brand in the minds of viewers.
In some commercials, Budweiser encourages responsible drinking, shows its commitment
to the use of renewable energy and displays the brand’s involvement in emergency relief
efforts together with the Red Cross.
Because of its creative, yet meaningful and touching ads, Anheuser-Busch InBev has not
only been able to take in huge profits, but it has also emerged several times as the most
successful advertiser in the annual Super Bowl Ad Meter Survey.
Apart from advertising during Super Bowl commercial breaks, Anheuser-Busch also takes to the internet,
using it to engage social media users before, during and after the game.
All this is a smart effort to market their brands to a younger group of beer-drinkers.
Recently, Anheuser-Busch has started to increase its focus on brand marketing to individual
cities in America.
Even though it still maintains its big, national campaigns, the beer manufacturer has begun
more localized efforts.
In Cleveland for instance, when the city’s football team, the Browns, finally won a game
after experiencing one of the longest losing streaks in football history, Bud Light set
up “victory fridges” in bars across the city.
Also, in 2018, when the Eagles won their first Super Bowl, Bud Light gave out free beer to
Eagles’ fans in Philadelphia.
This marketing approach has proved successful so far, with a significant increase in sales
of the beer within these cities.
Even though football isn’t the only sport that Anheuser-Busch InBev sponsors, the company’s
partnership with the Super Bowl has hands-down been the foundation for some of its most successful
marketing efforts.
Today, Anheuser-Busch is one of the largest producers of beer in the entire world.
It operates 12 breweries in the United States, employs over 30,000 people, and rakes in billions
of dollars in sales each year.
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