Budweiser Debuts Latest Ads Touting Environmental Efforts

TV Spots Featuring Employees, Wholesalers Highlighting Brewer’s Environmental Commitment to Air During Olympics on NBC

With a legacy of environmental commitment that dates back more than 100 years, Budweiser will use the Olympics to shine the spotlight on the brewer’s efforts to conserve energy and water, recycle, use alternative fuels and promote wildlife conservation. Beginning Thursday during the Olympic Games on NBC, Budweiser will air new television spots featuring its employees and one of its independent wholesalers.

The first of the ads features Jeremy Nolan, a utilities process manager based in St. Louis, who explains that one of the nation’s first recycling programs started by Anheuser-Busch founder Adolphus Busch in 1899 continues today. Budweiser recycles leftover grain from the brewing process for use as cattle feed. As Nolan comments in the spot, “So the joke is: You know what they call feed time at the farm? Happy hour!”

A second spot featuring Jeffrey Gower of Wil Fischer Distributing – the Budweiser independent wholesaler serving Springfield, Mo. – will air Saturday during the Olympics. The spot highlights Wil Fischer Distributing’s use of propane, rather than gasoline, to fuel several of the vehicles in its fleet, which helps reduce carbon emissions.

Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Budweiser, began running print ads and introduced a new Web site highlighting its environmental initiatives last November, with TV spots making their debut in April.

“We received great feedback on our environmental ads that feature our employees, and we’re excited to continue telling our story,” said Carol Clark, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of corporate social responsibility. “Our employees and wholesalers for many years have led efforts to protect and preserve the environment. It’s part of our pledge to be better environmental stewards of the world we share.”

Another commercial discusses the brewer’s efforts to conserve raw materials by reducing the amount of aluminum used in can lids, which also helps reduce energy used. This spot will be reinforced with a message on the secondary packaging of 12-pack Budweiser cans that highlights the one-eighth inch reduction in its can lids. This provides a savings of .53 grams of aluminum on every can Anheuser-Busch produces, adding up to more than 20 million pounds of aluminum annually. That’s enough aluminum to make more than 8 million bicycles.

A fourth spot features Budweiser’s partnership with Ducks Unlimited and the company’s support of the “Wetlands for Tomorrow” project dedicated to helping preserve wetlands across North America. The ads are scheduled to run throughout this summer and fall, and longer versions of the spots also may be seen on Anheuser-Busch’s environmental Web site, www.OurPledge.com.