The Homa Files

TakeAway: Anheuser-Busch made a risky and costly marketing decision when it decided to launch a school-themed Bud Light campaign without the permission of the schools. 

AB wasted a valuable portion of its marketing budget since, due to school protest, it must stop production of and remove the existing inventory of many “themed” beers.

And, it hacked off several of the biggest (football power-house) universities, potentially damaging future relations. 

A little more due diligence or “priming” should have been done before launching this marketing campaign.

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Excerpted from WSJ, “Team Colored Bud Cans Leave Colleges Flat” by John Hechinger, August 21 2009

Dozens of colleges are up in arms over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign that features Bud Light beer cans emblazoned with local schools’ team colors …

As part of a broader marketing effort, the Bud Light school-colors campaign, also called “Team Pride” in the marketing materials, aims to use “color schemes to connect with fans of legal drinking age in fun ways in select markets across a variety of sports,” … the cans don’t bear any school’s name or logo…

Colleges fear that promotions near college campuses will not only contribute to underage and binge drinking but also will give the impression that the colleges are endorsing the brew …

Collegiate Licensing Co., which represents about 200 colleges, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and other school-sports organizations, complained to Anheuser-Busch about potential trademark violations after being notified about the campaign. 

At least 25 schools have formally asked Anheuser-Busch to drop the campaign near their campuses. In recent letters, the University of Michigan’s lawyers threatened legal action for alleged trademark infringement, demanding that Anheuser-Busch not sell the “maize and blue” cans in the “entire state.” …

Edit by TJS

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Full Article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125081310939148053.html

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Ken’s Take: If the powerhouse schools had gotten a cut of the actions, I bet concerns re: underage drinking would have disappeared.  Call me cynical.

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This entry was posted on September 15, 2009 at 7:18 am and is filed under Beer & Liquor, Mktg - Packaging, Mktg - Promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.