Anheuser-Busch

From Wikicompany

Anheuser-Busch Inc. the world's third largest brewing company in volume after InBev and SABMiller.

The company brews 35 different beers and malt liquors. Anheuser-Busch's best known beers include brands such as:

• Budweiser
• Busch
• Michelob

The company also produces a number of smaller-volume and specialty beers, nonalcoholic brews, malt liquors:

• King Cobra
• Hurricane
• Bacardi
• Tequiza

Holdings & Subsidiaries

"A-B," as the company is often called, owns 12 U.S. breweries.

Overseas, Anheuser-Busch owns two breweries including the Budweiser Stag Brewing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom; in addition, breweries in seven countries produce Budweiser locally. It owns:

• 50% of Grupo Modelo in Mexico
• 29% of China's Harbin Brewery Group Ltd.
• 9.9% of Tsingtao Brewery Company Ltd. in China. Under an agreement with Tsingtao, Anheuser-Busch’s interest will increase to 27% during the next several years. A-B has 17 overseas offices.

Anheuser-Busch owns Busch Gardens, SeaWorld, and several other amusement parks and resorts, as well as production, transportation and packaging operations related to its beer business.

History

In November 2004 A-B sold its 20% participation in CCU (Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas) in Chile to a Chilean Bank, in a public bid.

The St. Louis Cardinals baseball team was owned by Anheuser-Busch from the mid 1950s until it was sold to a group of private investors in March 1996. Busch Stadium, paid for and built by the brewery in the early 1960s, still bears its name, although a new stadium is under construction and the current ballpark will be demolished by 2006. A-B has signed an agreement for the new ballpark to keep the "Busch Stadium" name.

(1) Source: Impact: Global News and Research for the Drinks Executive, Volume 33, Nos. 19 & 20, October 1 & 15, 2003.

Advertising

The company is known in the United States for its huge advertising presence, including a sports marketing division which creates advertising material for the Super Bowl and many other sporting events.

Famous Busch television campaigns have included the "Gimme a light" spots, frogs and lizards saying 'bud-wei-ser', the annual Bud Bowl, the "Waazzzup" series, and others. Recently, Miller Brewing began a series of commercials which featured "referees" calling "penalties" on people for drinking Budweiser, and they would then take the Budweiser and replace it with Miller.

Anheuser-Busch responded with their own "referees" commericals in which referees were taking people's Budweiser and keeping it for themselves. One such commercial showed the "referees" being confronted by the police. The most successful radio advertisements are the "Real American Heroes" ads, which were then changed to "Real Men of Genius" after September 11, 2001 attacks.