11 Budweiser
Introduction
Budweiser is a fantastic beer, not only is it a great beer it’s also one of my favourite drinks of choice. Budweiser is known as the “king of beers” and for good reason, with an amazingly distinct flavour and great marketing, everyone knows this is the king of beers. Being the “king of beers” has its perks everyone knows or has heard of the brand, ask anybody you know if they have tried Budweiser, I’m sure the answer will be that they have. Nowadays Budweiser can be found in all different colours and flavours, even a light version which went on to be one of the top selling beers of all time(Budweiser), Now that to me screams king of Beers.
Origins
Budweiser is such a well-known brand from pubs to stadium arenas, Budweiser can be found in all corners of the globe. But for this well-known brand it wasn’t always such a household name. A few hundred years ago in the 1850’s Budweiser was just a small neighbourhood brewery called Anheuser-Busch (Anheuser-Busch). Adolphus Busch the creator of Budweiser originally came from Germany to America in the late 1850’s. Around five years later Adolphus began the creation of the brand we all know today as Budweiser. To help the creation of this brand Adolphus’s newly married wife Lilly Anheuser, assisted him in getting a job at her father Eberhard Anheuser’s Brewery, where in Adolphus used his uniquely focused mindset and amazing ability for business to help propagate the brand abroad and in the states(Anheuser-Busch). In the 70’s Anheuser began using pasteurization in their beer to help shipments to travel longer distances, the Anheuser brand was one of the first to use this technique in America (Anheuser-Busch). In the 1880’s lily’s father Eberhard Anheuser died leaving Adolphus to become the president of Anheuser-Busch. Seemingly this was the beginning of a new age of the brewery and the brand Budweiser.
Check out this cool add from Budweiser
https://archive.org/details/1989-budweiser-commercial
milestones
Budweiser in the early days was a force in the industry, not only being one of the first to use such a revolutionary technique such as pasteurization, but the brand also brought in many new things (Anheuser-Busch). Such as:
Refrigerated rail cars. (1842) This was used to help cool the beer
items at a cold temperature to allow
transport to further places without spoil (Justin Lambrecht)
Artificial refrigerator (1876)
This was used to keep the beer and other components fresh and protect them from spoil (Sandvik AB, pub)
Bohemian-Style or lager (1876)
Adolphus Busch and his friend Carl Conrad developed this style of drink from their experiences abroad which was new drinking experience to the USA (Wikipedia. Budweiser)
Aluminum cans (1936)
Budweiser began using cans in early 1936 this helped the sales (Wikipedia. Budweiser).
Think back to when the company started out it must have been a lot harder to do the things that we take for granted, transportation of the beer must have been difficult, much harder then current times, in which we have giant cooled trucks and huge air conditioned airplanes for transportation of such a large quantities of beer. For this Company to be one of the first to use a lot of these methods, it a big deal Budweiser was a giant of its time and frankly still is to this day. People back in the 1850’s would need rail side ice houses to help keep the beverages cool to keep them fresh(Anheuser-Busch) Seems like quite a big load of effort just to keep your beers cool, but in all fairness there is more to it. Did you know the company in the in the early 1920’s Budweiser created a song called “Under The Anheuser Bush”
Now you may think it weird that a beer company of all things is making a musical play, but thats just how Budweiser operates. Budweiser the brand has been very smart with their almost “tactical” usage of advertising, constantly innovating their style. Did you know Budweiser has had almost 20 logos since its creation
Now if you ask me that is some great branding to me. Speaking of how Budweiser operates the Company always makes use of great marketing such as the time that Budwesier actually changed their brand name to say America(referralcandy). To me this speaks to how the brand finds opportunity in marketing. in 2016 Budwesier not only changed their brand name the company also gained a lot of publicity because of this seemingly “dumb” idea they had. But even though some journalists claim it be the worst rebranding in American history i see it as a more involved way to gain more of the public eye. Almost as if the brand wants the negative publicity to help bolster their sales.
Brewing science/industrialization
Brewing science can mean many things for beer companies and for Budweiser it sure does. Budweiser is well known for their innovation and style. They have been known to bring new and exciting innovations to the table like for instance pasteurization and bottling. Budweiser was one of the first companies to use these methods. Some may you may not even know about like pasteurization. This method was not used a lot of the time on a wide scale in the 1800’s. The technique consists of rapidly heating the alcohol killing the bacteria leaving the Alcohol with the same amount of nutrients. This being one of the most efficient method to clean the beer, Makes you wonder how they would keep their products clean before the companies used this method. Now for bottling, beer bottles weren’t always so available the process to make them took a long time but with industrialization the process became far easier to make and thus Budweiser was one of the first companies to product and package their beer in bottles.
Industrialization is a very big word but with big words come big meaning and for Budweiser they have always found some way for it to mean more then others. Budweiser has always been at the forefront of innovation. They seem to be the most influential company when it comes to industry defining feats. For reference in january of 2017 the company got the writes to a stadium and called it the “Budweiser Stage” in ontario canada.
WW1/WW2 Effects on Budweiser
WW1 wasn’t as big of a factor in Budweiser’s history, but it was still affected by it. Due to the recession and loss of jobs in the summer of 1918. The war efforts began in 1917 and more than 3 million soldiers were drafted to join the fight, that definitely meant the workforce was affected. The positive take away from this world war was the fact that the unemployment rate in the USA went from 16.4% to a nice 6.3% in 1916, meaning more people were working during the beginning of the war. (Heather Michon). After the first world war things seemed to only get worse for Beer companies, with the Prohibition on the rise most had to switch to more interesting methods to survive, as we know Budweiser started production on non-alcoholic beverages. Most others went under due to the changing political climate on drinking.
Just when things seemed to be getting better the second World War began plunging the world into disarray once more but for German-Amarican breweries it seemed even more so bleak and hopeless. This world war would bring to the USA an era of The Lager Beer Revolution (Toni/Kristen). The country began bursting with new Breweries crafting in the Lagger Style, but was we know Budweiser was already producing this type of beer. People at the time began to riot and produce propaganda against the Breweries claiming them to be wasting grain and they make people poor.
Obviously, this makes no sense nowadays but at the time many people were against the idea of German beer and Breweries. During this time of stress German-American breweries had to change up their iconography. The Anheuser-Busch brewery altered their labels to feature only English words and they also removed all the German symbology. This didn’t help the case as thing only got worse from there, Due to the war with Germany people began to hate all things German(Toni/KristenD). Due to the efforts of the American people they called upon the constitution to halt all production of Lager Style beer for almost 13 years in the USA from january 16 1919 onward. only to resume in 1933 after Franklin Roosevelt was accepted into office, repealing the recent constitutional changes and bringing forward the 21st amendment (toni/KristenD). But breweries saw this as an opportunity to gain back some of what was lost during the Prohibition and all of the stigma around German made beer, Breweries made a push to have beer as an essential war time ration and it succeeded. The US government began to ration out beer for war to soldiers. This act alone helped. bring Budweiser and companies like it back into the industry and helped them begin anew with newfound business in the war.
Consolidation and globalization
Budweiser has been around since the 1850’s since then many things have occurred, things like World War 1 and 2 these events affected Budweiser in the section above we saw just how bad things got how bad things got for German made Breweries. But Budweiser prevailed and grew from the war the country allowing the army to take beer into the war as rations helped Breweries grow and grow and they did, and Budweiser began its steady climb into the King of beers from as far back as WW2. Now examining how the company grew after these events we must start with the corporatisation of the beer market. With the market being almost refreshed after the events of WW2. After all those horrible things, people began anew with newfound interest in beer because beer was now bringing to be linked to patriotism, this due to the efforts of the Brewery Industry foundation sending out many advertisements that were linking beer to Patriotism. (Emily Saladino)
(example of the types of branding the Brewery industry foundation released)
This act of corporatism allowed beer companies in the USA to grow exponentially because drinking beer was now known to be patriotic.
Globalization of Budweiser
As we should already know by now Budweiser started off as a small industrial business created by Adolphus Busch’s father-in-law Eberhard Anheuser called Anheuser-Busch brewery. This fantastic duo created a lot of new ideas and inventions for breweries that are still used to this day. Like Beer Cans, refrigerated storage units and cold storage transportation, many of these things Budweiser started using first. These innovations helped elevate Budweiser into the global eye, but Budweiser almost seemed destined to be great from the start. The creators seemed to have known this brand was going to be the King of beers. Budweiser is one of the main contributors to the globalization of beer, due to of their “shoot first idealism” with innovation it was on natural that this Brewery would be globalizing first. Looking around in the modern times you seemingly can find Budweiser or some type of Busch beer in every beer store across the world, now I call that a globalized Brand. Due to the beer having a unique mixture it’s also hard to copy the flavour making it more sought after as well, helping the brand grow even more in the modern world.
Great branding and Advertisement
Recalling back to what I’ve said about Budweiser’s branding and marketing they are geniuses, countless times they have shown themselves as not only the King of beer but seemingly the King of branding. Over the years Budweiser seized the opportunity on every occasion to make themselves relevant. It’s assumed that Budweiser has spent over $449 million dollars in 2012 on advertisement alone (Wikipedia). It’s also stated that the Company has spent $1 billion on a six-year advertising agreement with NFL(Wikipedia). Budweiser has a very wide net for advertisements some including NASCAR, major league soccer and even ran ads on Chinese New Year in 2010. Budweiser has in the past even tried out having a mascot dog named Spuds Mackenzie (Wikipedia).
(Video of Spuds Mackenzie on the late Show)
Modern Era
Now for the Modern Era of Budweiser. We have learned about the past of this amazing Company, but I think it’s time we move forward to the now and the future of this brand. Upholding the title King of Beer should be hard but Budweiser has shown that even in the present times when things can change on a dime they still hold tight to the title. Even after all this time Budweiser released an amazing movie-like advertisement just like they used to showing that Budweiser can still can create amazing advertisements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Z_baf5kuc
(Link to the super bowl Advertisement 2022)
proving that they still can create amazing advertisements. With the inclusions of technology nowadays in everyday life it’s only a matter of time before Breweries too begin to use exclusively automated processes. Budweiser has already included these processes in their crafting, but I can see the future of a company this forward thinking to add even more automation to their beer crafting methods. Budweiser uses AI in their creation of beer, this AI is called SenseAI which has the function to boost machine learning boosting quality and flavour (Bernard Marr). This process uses moment to moment analytics to help measure the data created during the brewing process. (Bernard Marr). But with the constant innovations of technology eventually we will see more technologies that can “taste” the beer beforehand making the beer almost perfected.
References:
(anheuser-busch)
https://www.anheuser-busch.com/about/heritage/
(infoplease)
https://www.infoplease.com/history/us/us-history-civil-war-and-reconstruction-1850-1899
(justin lambrecht)
https://nationalrrmuseum.org/blog/the-coolest-place-on-the-train/
(Sandvik AB, pub)
https://www.materials.sandvik/en/campaigns/fridge-of-the-future/the-history-of-the-refrigerator/
(wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser
(wikipedia)
(Toni M. Kiser/Kristen D. Burton, PhD)
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-world-war-ii-saved-american-beer-brewing
(Emily Saladino)
https://vinepair.com/articles/world-war-two-beer-patriotism/
(Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser
(Bernard Marr)
Media sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser
- https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/4d90cc49-9a50-422e-9854-21c5ee17376b
- https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/10247e57-5a6f-4b13-bc82-e05019c2ac19
- https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/bb16b8f4-5940-49a1-a14e-a73d3392853a
- https://www.materials.sandvik/en/campaigns/fridge-of-the-future/the-history-of-the-refrigerator/
- https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/10a5067e-29d7-49ac-8cc0-02db9311613a
- https://archive.org/details/1989-budweiser-commercial
- https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/budweiser-marketing-strategy/
- https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-world-war-ii-saved-american-beer-brewing
- https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-world-war-ii-saved-american-beer-brewing
- https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F258886678552411339%2F&psig=AOvVaw2qs9PwsWXwj8tRKtZ4YejB&ust=1647013836624000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCID5x-fyu_YCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAc
- https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F258886678552411339%2F&psig=AOvVaw2qs9PwsWXwj8tRKtZ4YejB&ust=1647013836624000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCID5x-fyu_YCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAc
- http://neatdesigns.net/35-everlasting-budweiser-vintage-ads-part-2/
- https://vinepair.com/articles/world-war-two-beer-patriotism/
