We reported Wednesday that when consumers ranked brands on their patriotic attributes, Budweiser was near the bottom. That was, as we noted, a great surprise to us because we always thought Budweiser was the quintessential American brand.
Plus it donates millions to support American men and women in military service, provide canned drinking water in natural disasters.
When we caught up with Robert Passikoff, president, Brand Keys, who did the study, we asked him what could explain this.
His response: The problem goes back at least roughly a decade, and reflects Budweiser’s turn from brand marketing to experential marketing. Event sponsorships, while nice, aren’t enough to build a brand’s image or solidify connections with consumers, he said.
Added to that: The sale of Busch Gardens and Sea World, immediately after InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch Cos. eight years ago, cutting back the number of Budweiser Clydesdale hitches, charging parade organizers for those hitches to appear in parades and county fairs around the country. Those actions may have been great for the bottom line, Passikoff told us. But they also served to loosen the emotional connection of the brand with the consumer.
In that vein, it’s a fair bet that moving Anheuser-Busch’s marketing department from St. Louis to New York City will hurt, not because people in New York aren’t patriotic (they are) but because they tend to have values which are not quite the same as those in middle America, which is where the bulk of Budweiser’s sales occur. It’s just harder to connect with people whose values aren’t your values.
If that’s a mistake, the impending sale of Grant’s Farm, the Busch family’s historic home outside St. Louis is an even bigger mistake.
Here’s the interview: