AB Inbev : international marketing strategy

Résumé du document

One of the biggest trends in the global beer business has been the steady rush by the bigger brewers to establish links with local market leaders and build strong global networks to leverage the advantages of scale. Another top priority for leading brewers has been to plant footholds in markets that are both growing from a population standpoint and have relatively low but increasing per-capita consumption of beer. The 2008 acquisition of AB by Inbev has created a wave in field of global merger and acquisitions that have been shaping the brewing industry in the twenty first century. The internationalization of leading brands such as Stella Artois, Brahma, Heineken, Carlsberg, Miller and Bass previously domestic or regional but not global, has transformed brewing into a highly competitive and concentrated industry, where to succeed you need to compete on a global stage. This paper will review InBev's EPG mix, its Marketing Mix, its International Marketing Strategy and its Strategic position within the foreign markets and within its industry.

Extraits

[...] However, a new New York office was opened after the AB acquisition and took some global operations management. AB InBev's management understands the need to share the power with North American operations to facilitate the AB merger. It will be interesting to see how the collaboration between the two HO unfolds. At the moment, it is a Geocentric approach, will it become Polycentric? 2.2 Complexity of organisation Before the merger, InBev was a mix of an Ethnocentric (AmBev) and a Polycentric (Interbrew) framework. AB InBev is transforming the organisation to become more complex and interdependent (Geocentric framework). [...]

[...] Heineken is better recognized as a global brand in itself. One rationale behind the acquisition of AB is to push Bud Light and Budweiser which are the world's two biggest selling beers in the same league as Heineken. A perceptual map of the beer market can also help understand the strategic position occupied by some of AB InBev beers in the industry. This example was taken from a presentation by Roy D. Howell, Professor Marketing Area Texas Tech University Conclusion AB InBev is the number one brewer in the world. [...]

[...] InBev spent between $40 million and $50 million to market Stella Artois in 2007, including about $15 million devoted to U.S. measured media, according to TNS Media Intelligence and other sources.''[5] Some thought the Anheuser-Busch acquisition by InBev was a strategy to get hold of the US brewer's distribution system to build its four global brands Beck's, Stella Artois, Brahma and Leffe into North America. Under that scenario, Budweiser would be downgraded. But according to InBev's Brazilian chief executive, Carlos Brito, AB InBev intends to turn up the heat on Budweiser. [...]

[...] Miller, Nigel , Biggest to best: InBev's journey to a new global culture, Publication: Strategic Communication Management, Monday, August Teresa da Silva Lopes, A Global Case of Beer Or is it A Case of Global Beer? http://cupblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/a-global-case-of-beer/ 3. White, Aoife, InBev's Brito A 'No-Frills' Leader, AP Business Writer Manufacturing.Net , July Barnet, Kim, Tapping into the world market, Interbrand corporation 5. Dalton, Matthew, AB InBev Suppliers Feel Squeeze Smaller Companies Complain of Brewing Behemoth's Newfound Muscle, Wall Street, April Marketing Week, InBev courts King of Beers, June 18th Rupal Parekh, InBev Calls Global Creative Review for Stella Artois Longtime Agency Lowe Won't Defend $40M-$50M Account http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=130384, Posted by on @ 04:07 PM 8. [...]

[...] The marketing strategy of AB InBev can be defined as a mix between cost efficiency through standardization and economies of scale and flexibility to adapt to the changes that occur in the business environment (transnational strategy). The Marketing management is designed in a way that the Marketing manager of a SBU is responsible for all the product categories designed and/or distributed in a specific geographical area. For example, AB InBev has appointed Andreas Hilger as marketing director of its merged business. [...]