Position Paper 3

 Anheuser-Busch Public Branding

Branding is a key element in every business’s success. Design teams spend a lot of time and money dedicated to the specific brand logo in order to promote the company and its name. Having a quality logo helps keep a company in the public eye. Through many outlets, Anheuser-Busch does a good job at keeping its brand and specifically its logo in the spotlight. Anheuser-Busch was founded in the 1850s as a small neighborhood brewery and since then has transformed into a national presence. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, where their name is a massive deal. They have many products that are almost household names at this point, including, but not limited to, Budweiser, Busch, and Michelob. Each product has its own sub logo within the Anheuser-Busch spectrum.

    In St. Louis alone, the company works hard at keeping its brand very public. Their most notable effort is their large Budweiser logo sign on the I-64 highway in downtown St. Louis. This giant neon sign sports a 32-foot eagle inside a gigantic “A”. Below the eagle is the word “Budweiser” standing 8 feet tall and 58 feet wide. This sign has graced the St. Louis highway since 1961, and is a crowd favorite when heading westbound on 1-64 and Blues and Cardinals games. They host a walk-through lights show every winter in which they promote their name. The Brewery Lights are a family friendly, outdoor event on the home campus of Anheuser-Busch in Soulard in St. Louis. This is a walking tour through the brewery, but during the coronavirus pandemic, the tour took place as a drive-through. It includes Christmas lights, s’mores, games and beer. With each ticket purchase, parking is included, and guests 21 and older are welcomed at the Lager Landing with a complementary 16-ounce beer.

    The lights also serve as an opportunity to meet another key aspect of the Anheuser-Busch name- the Clydesdales. Anheuser-Busch own a total of around 250 Clydesdales held at various locations. Their official breeding facility is in Boonville, Missouri at Warm Springs Ranch. This ranch alone is home to 70 of their Clydesdales.

The image of the Budweiser Clydesdales has been a massive promotional point for the Anheuser-Busch name for many decades. The symbolism of the Clydesdale for the company originated in 1933, when August A. Busch, Jr. presented a hitch as a gift to his father, August Anheuser Busch, Sr. who was guided outside the brewery being told his son has purchased him a new car, but was instead greeted by the horses, pulling a red, white and gold beer wagon. This hitch carried the first post-Prohibition case of beer from the St. Louis brewery. Busch, Sr. saw the promotional potential and sent the Clydesdale team around the United States and adopted the team as the marketing strategy that they were. These Clydesdales are a well-known feature to those who live by Anheuser-Busch breweries or breeding facilities, but the company makes them known nationwide through their Super Bowl Commercial each year. This tradition started in 1986 with an ad during Super Bowl XX.

The company also hold the rights to the naming of the St. Louis Cardinals’ stadium. The story behind Busch Stadium actually expanded the Anheuser-Busch product line, in turn expanding the company name in multiple aspects. The previously named Sportsman’s Park was rebranded as Busch Stadium in 1953. It was planned to name the stadium Budweiser Stadium, but league rules prohibited naming a venue after an alcoholic beverage. Busch names the stadium after himself and after, Anheuser-Busch introduced Busch Beer. Besides just holding the naming rights to the stadium, Anheuser-Busch actually used to own the Cardinals baseball team during the whole rebranding period. They bought the team in 1953 and owned it until 1995, when they stated it was “in the best interest of everyone, including the Cardinals and the fans, to seek a new owner”. Their hope with the sale was that the team would remain in St. Louis, but no promises could be made. Luckily, the team was sold to a local buyer, and a relationship remained between the team and the brewing company. Even after the sale, Anheuser-Busch still parades the brewery’s Clydesdales around the stadium at opening day and World Series games and large signs at Busch Stadium promote Budweiser, Michelob, and other AB products.

Outside of St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch also has a large name for itself outside of its alcoholic beverages. Busch Gardens is the name of two amusement parks in the United States. The original park is in Tampa, Florida and the second is in Williamsburg, Virginia. These parks were initially developed as marketing tools for Anheuser-Busch and featured hospitality houses with samples of AB products. They also included stables with some of their Clydesdales. Over time, rides and attractions were added to the gardens and they were developed into full blown theme parks.

Anheuser-Busch utilizes many aspects in order to promote their company and their name and various logos. Through these many outlets, the company keeps its name extremely public outside of just its multiple beer brands.