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Anheuser-Busch Tops Top Advertisers List

According to The Nielsen Co. and The Sports Business Journal, Anheuser-Busch was sports biggest television advertiser for the third year in a row. Anheuser-Busch spent over 300 million dollars this past year. Yes, that is a ridiculous amount of money to be spending on advertising, but it was down 5.6% from the previous year.
Does television advertising really make that much of a difference??? Is it worth it for Anheuser-Busch to spend that much money. According to a study done by Alloy Media, "word of mouth" and "samples" are above TV advertising for the most useful types of advertising for college students.
What does that say to Anheuser-Busch?
What percentage of college students are watching sports?
Are the college students that are watching sports directly affected by the Anheuser-Busch ad's, or are they just going by word-of-mouth?

Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi Joining Forces??

According to a report Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi are getting together to "wring savings" out of media companies.
This is a big deal for their marketing and advertising strategies. Pepsi spends a ton of money on their advertising and is one of the biggest advertising companies in the world...and we all know what Anheuser-Busch does with their ad's. With these two advertising-giants joining forces, they can now negotiate deals together. Everything from small page ads to the Super Bowl will be affected by this partnership.
Now, I didn't know this but I guess this teaming up will further fuel the rumors that Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi will one day merge into one giant company.

A Successful Recession

The global economic crisis that started in September 2008 has finally subsided. The rate of increase in average quarterly revenues for 500 companies turned positive in the last quarter of 2009. In was a long, pain-staking time for companies throughout the world but things are starting to get better.
There were few companies that performed well throughout the recession, with Anheuser-Busch being one of them. According to this article , Anheuser-Busch was ranked number one in terms of things like having a consistent revenue and having an operating profit. Behind Anheuser-Busch came companies such as; Volkswagen, Novartis and Apple. The article states three reasons for the success of Anheuser-Busch as well as the other companies. Being able to secure surplus management resources such as cash was essential. Second, being able to promptly redistribute provided a competitive edge. Lastly, providing new value to customers helped to achieve recession-proof revenue growth.
A recession is a major "crisis" and Anheuser-Busch did a great job with managing it.

A Reality Series for Anheuser-Busch????

Anheuser-Busch is a major sponsor for this years World Cup. Aside from doing all of the normal advertising, Anheuser-Busch is trying something that is unchartered waters for them. They are creating their own reality tv series in conjuction with the World Cup.
A fan from each of the 32 teams competing in this World Cup this summer will be selected and be given a spot in the "Bud House". As the residents native country gets elimated from the tournament, the person will be asked to leave the house. The two remaining contestants will revceive tickets to the final game of the World Cup so that they can cheer on their squads.
"The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa presents an unparalleled opportunity for us to fully leverage our new found scale and expanded brand portfolio for the newly formed Anheuser-Busch InBev,” said Chris Burggraeve, chief marketing officer of Anheuser-Busch. “Digital and experiential marketing will be at the core of our connection plans."
This is a real interesting concept. Its something that Anheuser-Busch is unfamiliar with so it could cause some problems. Either way, it is most definiately going to generate interest and reach its ultimate goal of making people aware of Anheuser-Busch products.

Voluntary Layoffs at Jacksonville Brewery

According to an article from Jacksonville.com, Anheuser-Busch is looking for employees to volunteer for a part-time time off from work.
"From time to time, the operational needs of the brewery dictate a temporary reduction in manpower," said Jim Brickey, Anheuser-Busch vice president of people. "We work to gain these reductions through volunteers who welcome the time off."
Anheuser-Busch's employees are its most important internal public. Yes, this is a bad situation but they are making the best of it by asking for volunteers. Both the employees and Anheuser-Busch realize that these changes have to be made and that there is no easy way to do it.
If not enough employees volunteer for the "enhanced severance incentive" then Anheuser-Busch will have to turn to selecting employees for the temporary layoff. Anheuser
Anheuser-Busch is doing all that it can to avoid any sort of crisis. Affected employees will retain full benefits and are eligible for unemployment compensation.

DEATH AT SEAWORLD

Ealier this month a veteran trainer was killed by a Killer Whale at the Anheuser-Busch owned Sea World in Orlando, Florida.
Could anything have been done to avoid this? Even though the whale involved was the oldest and most worked-with whale it has been learned that there have been two deaths caused by this specidic whale, Tilikum.
How can Anheuser-Busch ensure its customers that a tragedy like this will never happen again? Is there any way that they can ensure its customers? What should they continue to do so that it does not lose any future customers?

Does Anheuser-Busch Give Back?

I have spent the last few blog post talking about possible crises and disasters that Anheuser-Busch is faced with. But what happens when a disaster strikes that doesn't effect Anheuser-Busch??
Anheuser-Busch is ready to assist disaster victims. When a devastating earthquake hit San Francisco in 1906 Anheuser-Busch was there for support, they showed their disaster preparedness by donating funds to victims and the relief process.
Since 1988, Anheuser-Busch has packaged more than 67 million cans of fresh drinking water. Following any natural disaster Anheuser-Busch is ready to distribute these cans of fresh drinking water as needed.
After New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina, Anheuser-Busch provided victims with a little over 9 million cans of fresh drinking water.
On a smaller scale, when flooding affected the cities of Gowanda and Silver Creek, New York, Anheuser-Busch was ready to assist the victims by providing them with the cans of fresh drinking water.
Kudos to you Anheuser-Busch for your continued service to communities around the United State.

TYPES of CRISES

We have recently been taught that a crisis can fall into six different categories.
-Unusual weather patterns and natural disasters
-Terrorism
-Reliance of the internet
-Human-induced crisis
-Sustainability and environmental damage
-Globalization and outsourcing
Anheuser-Busch can suffer from crises that fall into all six of these categories. Now, because of the type of company that Anheuser-Busch is, some types of crises could arise more than others.
Even though reliance of the internet is becoming so evident with businesses, Anheuser-Busch does not have to worry about the internet. Will they have to develop their website more? Yes, they already have, it is very browser friendly and visually appealing. Will they have to produce more advertisements for the internet? Yes, the internet has such a huge market for advertising. People are becoming so dependent on the internet that they may not even watch television or read a newspaper for their news or for pleasure. But, Anheuser-Busch’s products have such a good reputation. They are the biggest brewer of beer in the United States. Between commercials, sponsorships, word of mouth and overall quality, Anheuser-Busch products will be on top for a long time to come. The internet can only help Anheuser-Busch.
Anheuser-Busch has to worry about human-induced crises. Between its brewers, distribution workers, consumers or advertising/PR/marketing people there are numerous problems that a human can create. Whether the employee is disgruntled, a consumer over-uses a product or a marketing person creates a bad ad, there is always something that can go wrong.
For example, in 1991 a man sued Anheuser-Busch for false advertising. The man claimed that a Budweiser ad caused him to have emotional distress, mental injury and financial loss. Unlike the ads, the man said that when he drank Budweiser, women weren’t automatically attracted to him. He also claimed that beautiful women and tropical settings did not appear out of thin air…like the ads at the time displayed. Ridiculous…I know. Even though that did not lead to a crisis you can see the types of problems that Anheuser-Busch is faced every day. Though no money was lost, time was wasted because someone had to deal with these absurd claims that the gentleman was making.

ADVERTISING CRISIS

As I said in my last post, advertising is HUGE for Anheuser-Busch. During the Super Bowl alone, five or six new Budweiser/Bud Light commericials were aired. Here are a couple of my favorites: The Book Club and T-Pain.
Now, as you can see there is nothing over-the-top in those commercials, just good fun. To my surprise, the power of the female body was not used in any of the commercials that were aired during the Super Bowl.
I began to research old Anheuser-Busch ad's to see if any crisis had ever emerged from an advertising mistake.
In 2006, Anheuser-Busch was set to launch a new ad featuring the music of a band The Standells', which was recorded over 40 years-ago. The problem was that Anheuser-Busch only paid the record comapany for the use of "Dirty Water", the song in question. The Standells' were never in line to see any money of the work they put in while recording the song. The Standells' sued Anheuser-Busch for 1 million dollars.
Anheuser-Busch was faced with a bit of a problem. Not only were they being sued for a million dollars, they had just produced a commercial that they are not going to be able to use....an incredible amount of time/money was wasted. At the other end, I wouldn't be surprisd if Anheuser-Busch wasn't that upset over the loss of the commercial considering it is an advertising giant. I am sure there are teams of advertising guro's that could whip up a successful ad in a short period of time.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT AT ANHEUSER-BUSCH

Well....after a lot of thought, I have decided to switch companies from ATO Records to Anheuser-Busch. Though ATO Records is a very successful record company, I have realized that it would simply be easier to work with a client who was more prevelant in the news. Anheuser-Busch is one of, if not the "premier brewery" in the United States.
That being said, Anheuser-Busch is susceptible to crisis.
The Super Bowl is less than five days away and even if you dont like sports you are more then likely going to be watching on Sunday. If not for the game but for the commercials.
Beer commercials make up a huge chunk of those commercials...and what sells beer??? Beautiful women who are half-naked. Now, for a young adult like myself I do not take offense to those commercials, I happen to enjoy them but if I were a parent or someone who finds half-naked women vulgar then I would take offense to that.
So how does Anheuser-Busch decide if their commercials have gone too far?? How do they know where to stop?? Obviously they dont want a law-suit on their hands for vulgar material but at the same time they are going to do all they can to draw attention to their product. What do the marketing, advertising, production and PR teams have to do to avoid the possible lawsuit crisis for vulgarity??
Be sure to watch on Sunday and see what type of commercial Anheuser-Busch puts out. Will it be one that is full of women or will they go another route....we shall see.

My Client is ATO Records

In this blog I will be focusing on ATO Records. I will try to apply the information I learn from the textbook and in-class discussion to developing crisis communication strategies for ATO Records. For example, Professor Laskin explained that crisis can be caused by an outside or inside error (deliberate or not). ATO Records, for example, can potentially face crises from the inside. The main threat of a crisis is obviously the artist. An artist/artists can potentially do so many things that can cause for panic. An artist can do something that shines a negative light on themselves, there are so many examples in society today where we see people in the public eye making mistakes which lead to destruction of their image. If an artist that is signed to ATO does something that shines a negative light on them it could ultimately effect their record and ticket sales. A lot of times celebrities fix their image by acknowledging their mistakes but we often see that people in the limelight do not admit to their faults thus further damaging their image.
A major outside threat to ATO is that record sales are significantly dropping. With rise of new technology and downloading clients, CD's are becoming a dead technology. Why would someone want to lug around a 10-pound CD-book when they can carry around a less than 1-pound iPod?? Why would someone want to pay for a CD when they can download it for FREE from Limewire and various Bittorrent websites???

DISCLAIMER

This is a students blog for a Crisis Communication class at Quinnipiac University. As such, I as the author of this blog make no representation as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity on any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information in any losses, damages or injuries arising from its display or use. All information is provided as an as-is basis. Opinions expressed on this blog are Todd Kaiser's personal opinions and do not represent opinions of Quinnipiac University or of the instructor of the class.