Anheuser-Busch vs Miller - Fighting the Crocodile | 6

Business Wars

Audible

History, David Brown, Business, Management

4.6 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s a new century and the beer industry is changing fast. Beyond America, new brewery empires are forming and they want to buy their way into the lucrative U.S. market.

And Miller is the first to fall, bought out by a South African company that wants to pull the Milwaukee brewery out of the doldrums.

But Anheuser-Busch isn’t worried. It’s the biggest brewer on the planet by some margin. But the king of beers is about to discover that its throne isn’t as secure as it thinks.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members. You can listen to business wars. Add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:13.9	It's summer
0:14.9	2003 and in Milwaukee a man with a thick gray mustache is showing Miller's marketing team their latest TV ad.
0:22.4	The ads called cat fight and it lives up to its name.
0:26.6	On the TV two women are tearing off each other's clothes and fighting about whether Miller life tastes great or is less filling.
0:35.4	The team think it's great not least because it sparked accusations of sexism that have got people talking about life for the first time in years.
0:44.7	Demand his the pause button on the DVD. He's Norman Ademi the new South African boss of Miller. He's scowleds at the team.
0:53.5	That is everything that is wrong about Miller's advertising. The controversy over this commercial is completely overshadowed the return of our tastes great less filling slogan.
1:03.9	And it is putting customers off too. Sales have lighted down 3%.
1:10.3	The marketing team says nothing. They're getting used to hearing hard truths from their new South African overlords.
1:18.0	A year ago the company South African breweries bought Miller for $5.6 billion.
1:23.8	Now it's called SAB Miller and it's the second biggest brewery in the world. Only Anheuser Bush is bigger.
1:32.2	A decade ago few would have bet South African breweries was destined for world domination.
1:38.6	Trading bargos on a partate South Africa meant the brewery had no choice but to focus on dominating its own market.
1:45.3	But since the end of a partate it's been using the profits from its stranglehold on South Africa's beer market to fund a rapid global expansion.
1:54.4	Its growth strategy focuses on buying failing breweries and turning them around. Miller is its biggest acquisition yet and Ademi's been sent to America to fix the business.
2:06.3	So after scorching the cat fight ad Ademi suggests a new direction.
2:11.5	There's a saying in South Africa if you're going to fight a crocodile you don't do it in the water.
2:17.0	Anheuser Bush is doing very well promoting Michelob Ultra as a low carb beer. Yet Michelob Light has even fewer carbs.
2:25.8	That is our dry land. That is where we will fight the crocodile of St. Louis.
2:32.3	That fall Miller Light goes on the offensive and its timing is perfect.
2:38.8	The low carb Atkins diet has reached peak popularity.
	...

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