Ah, Deutchland!

I have a soft spot for Germany, partly because I worked with Germans here in Montreal and worked there for a little while. So I am rooting for Germany in the World Cup.

So with all the news reports coming from Germany hosting the World Cup, one came up I had to address. This, to me, is a major PR blunder. Which has lead to the logo that starts off this post.

One of the seven US sponsors of the World Cup is Anheuser-Busch. I was surprised to see there were any US sponsors since the US is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t give a shit about the World Cup.

Anyway, Anheuser-Busch paid $40 million for “pouring rights” at 12 stadiums across Germany. This has, as expected cause some major problems.

To put it simply, Germans hate Budweiser. And I can’t say I don’t blame them. Now weeks before the inaugural games, Germans were furious at the prospect of having to drink Bud at some of the stadiums. Many Germans refer to Bud as “dishwater”. This prompted a website, BudOut - we’re into beer that has the above logo. As the logo shows, it lampoons the American brewer and expresses their disgust.

The first quote from the website include:

Human dignity is inviolable

which is quoted from the German constitution. The site goes on to call Bud:

an insult to all true beer lovers

and

insult to your tongue

Ah but things get worse over the Germany. FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football), soccer’s governing body did little to improve Bud’s standing. During the first round Holland-Ivory Coast, thousands of Dutch fans had to watch in their underwear. Now why was this, some may ask?

Well close to a quarter million Dutch fans purchased orange coloured shorts to support their team. And they carry the logo of Bavaria, which is a Dutch beer. To protect Budweiser’s rights, FIFA forced the Dutch supporters to remove their shorts.

In The Guardian, a Dutch fan, Sjoerd Schreurs was quoted as saying:

It's ridiculous. I took my trousers off. I managed to chuck them over the fence to some friends. But another official spotted them and took them away.

The World Cup is a marketer’s wet dream, in most countries, except the US. In 2002, more than a billion people watched the World Cup final between Brazil and Germany. FIFA says that 32 million cumulative viewers will watch this year’s month long tournament. And they estimate that each match will draw in 350 million viewers. To put this into perspective, the 2006 Super Bowl had 95 million viewers worldwide.

These titanic numbers in international audience are the reason companies will spend $1 billion in advertising before the end of the World Cup. Anheuser-Busch expects to spend $70 million in advertising and marketing. This is more than it spent on the Super Bowl and Olympics.

So, as Tony Ponturo, VP for global media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch points out:

For us it's the No. 1 beer consumer event in the world

He also points out that they have been a World Cup sponsor since 1986 and it markets heavily at the event. It makes no difference if it is in France, Korea or Germany.

But, true to character, the Americans come in like a bull in a china shop and are surprised at any kind of reaction, especially negative reactions.

We are talking about Germany. A place where, in 1516, the Beer Purity Law was established. This limits beer ingredients to yeast, water, barley and hops.

Over time, some adjustments were made to allow other ingredients for speciality beer, like wheat and rice. This was the loophole that Anheuser-Busch tried to use in the late 80’s to get their ‘beer’ to be imported. You see rice is a key ingredient in Bud. And that explains alot.

There were various legal challenges that kept Bud from the German market until 1996. But Bud can only be sold as “Anheuser-Busch Bud” so it will not be confused with the popular Czech beer: Budweiser Budvar.

One way Anheuser-Busch thought about appeasing the German drinkers was that they made a deal that the German-made Bitburger beer could be sold in the stadiums, albeit in unmarked cups. Ponturo pointed out that Bud was outselling Bitburger at a 70 to 40 percent rate.

Which doesn’t surprise me because Bitburger, in my opinion, isn’t much better than Bud. It is one of the mass produced German beers, exported to places like here in Canada.

What surprised me was that Ponturo actually pointed to the extremely competitive beer market in Germany where you will have over 1200 breweries. And Bud represents less than 1% of the market share. He is quoted saying:

It's difficult for even German beers to grow in certain areas of Germany because there are so many local beers. There are so many options, and they take pride in that.

Now he is right. What impressed me when I was working in Germany was the different beers, local and national, that were available. Be it bock, wheat, lager, whatever, you had quite a choice. When I started working there, I was in heaven trying different local Bavarian beers. And it seemed, each small town had it’s own small brewery.

But some of them were pure utter crap. I quickly found out that many of the mass-produced beers were not much better our mass-produced Canadian beers. But generally better than mass-produced American beers.

Thing is, Americans have some amazing beer. Be it Samuel Adams, Sierre Nevada, Pete’s to name a few, I have had great American beers. And found amazing brewpubs. But the giants like Anheuser-Busch, Coors or Miller pump out their piss at a cheap price so the average person generally buys their crap instead of the good stuff.

But what is happening in Germany with Bud just shows the arrogant attitude many of these businesses have toward their customers. And it isn’t just American companies.

A few years ago, I was part of the St. Patrick’s Parade here in Montreal. And one of the primary sponsors was Molson, a Canadian beer maker. I was wearing a Cat in the Hat style Guinness hat. Which I was not allowed to wear because it would cause problems with the sponsor. My take was: Huh? This is an Irish parade. What is more Irish than Guinness. But that is not how the sponsors see it. The cameras would pick it up. The parade was sponsored by Molson so only Molson ‘ads’ could be shown. So I could not down Ste. Catherine showing the word Guinness.

Which was stupid because along Ste. Catherine, there were tons of people on the sidewalk wearing the same hat which got on camera. At least Molson didn’t go into the crowd, like FIFA with the Dutch fans, to get the revellers at the parade to remove their hats.

For me, it is an arrogance that permeates the corporate mindset. They see people as stupid sheep that get confused if they see more than one brand of the same thing advertised. If someone saw Budweiser being shown along side with Bitburger, they might have a melt down. They might not know what to buy!

Instead of believing in their quality of their brands, they hope that minimizing the competition, people will not go out and try other things. This might work in your own country where you have a large market share but it doesn’t work internationally.

Beers like Heinken or Corona use a mystique to hook new customers here in North America. But people keep buying them because they are good beers. Bud sells because it is cheap way to get a buzz. It isn’t good.

American wines are doing well internationally. If beer like Samuel Adams were to show up here in Montreal, I would pick it up. In the end, Anheuser-Busch should have been a little more considerate about how they pushed their beer.

At the same time, we can’t blame all of this on Anheuser-Busch. FIFA dropped the ball also. They pandered to a sponsor, leaving an interesting image for many football fans after the Holland-Ivory Coast game.

Their action, to me, shows that the sponsor is more important than the fans. Money is more important than the World Cup itself. It shows that they, like all the other organizing committees are seeing these events not as a celebration of excellence but an orgy of greed.

I know it costs money to put these events on. But they make money on the ticket prices. They make money on the television rights. The World Cup brings in thousands upon thousands of fans, as I saw when I was in Italy in 1990.

The World Cup has been around for a while. FIFA should know how to run the tournament without the strings attached when it comes to sponsors. It is not like the Olympics where new venues have to be built and new infra-structures need to be created.

Each German city has a football stadium. From what I can see, nothing new was required to be built. So what are all the expenses needed for? I suppose that is the unanswered question that is at the root of this post.

More and more of these events are just giant billboards for products and the reason for them are being lost. Be it the World Cup or the Olympics, we should be celebrating the sport and the athletes. But they are just becoming a big business themselves.

But I am not hardened by this turn of events. Be it the St. Patrick’s Parade here or the World Cup, the people who participate are the heart of it. And if we have to sit in our underwear, we’ll let the sponsors and organizers know who is important here. Now if only they would stop and listen.