E-Malt.com News article: 3348

China: Anheuser-Busch announced on September 28 that Budweiser becomes international beer sponsor to support Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) and Anheuser-Busch, Inc., announced today that Budweiser will be the official “i nternational beer sponsor” to support the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. BOCOG Vice President and Secretary General Wang Wei, Chief Executive Officer and President of Anheuser-Busch Cos., Inc., Patrick Stokes and IOC representatives attended the press conference.

As part of the sponsorship, Anheuser-Busch has rights to use the 2008 Olympic Games logo for promotional purposes in China and 29 other countries around the world. This marks Anheuser-Busch’s first sponsorship of a summer Olympic Games held outside the United States.

“The development of the Olympic marketing program in the past two decades has proven that a closer relationship between the IOC, the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) and the business community constitutes a vital guarantee for the success of an Olympic Games. The participation of companies with international brand names has laid a solid material groundwork for a successful Olympic Games, and the Olympic platform, on the other hand, provides an important and rare opportunity for these companies to build up their corporate images on an international basis,” Wang Wei said at the press conference.

“China is the most important international market for Anheuser-Busch, and Budweiser’s sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic Games reinforces our commitment to supporting the communities where we do business,” Stokes said. “We’re proud to support the Olympic movement in China and wish the best of luck to the China Olympic Team as they compete for gold in Beijing.”

Budweiser plans to support its sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic Games by using the official marks on packaging, point-of-sale materials, sales promotions, branded merchandise and other marketing programs.

The agreement also extends Budweiser’s sponsorship of the China Olympic Team through 2008. To underscore Budweiser’s support of the team, Wei, Stokes and Tony Ponturo, vice president, global media and sports marketing, Anheuser-Busch, Inc., today honored athletes GUO Jingjing (diving), LI Xiaopeng (gymnastics) and MA Lin (table tennis) with a gift in celebration of their recent medal-winning performances in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. GUO captured gold medals in both the women’s 3-meter springboard and women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard diving events; LI earned an individual bronze medal in the men’s parallel bars competition; and MA captured gold in men’s doubles table tennis in Athens. Budweiser has been an official sponsor of the China Olympic Team since 2000.

As the largest-volume and fastest-growing beer market in the world, China is the most important market for Anheuser-Busch outside the United States. The company’s investments in the Budweiser International Brewing Co. Ltd. in Wuhan, the Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. in Qingdao, and the Harbin Brewery Group Ltd. in Harbin total more than $1 billion (RMB 9.1 billion).

In addition to the 2008 Olympic Games, Budweiser is the “official beer” sponsor of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. Anheuser-Busch’s brands also serve as “official beer” sponsors of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), extending its support of the U.S. Olympic Team through 2008. Anheuser-Busch is the exclusive malt-beverage advertiser for all Olympic Games telecasts in the United States through 2008.

Budweiser has been an Olympic supporter since 1984 when the brand was the “official beer” sponsor of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Budweiser also was the “official beer” sponsor of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Based in St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch is the leading U.S. brewer. In addition to its own beer brands, Anheuser-Busch invests in leading local brewers in important growth markets. In addition to its investment with Tsingtao and its acquisition of Harbin in China, Anheuser-Busch has a 50 percent share in Grupo Modelo, Mexico’s leading brewer, and a 20 percent equity position in Compañía Cervecerías Unidas (CCU), which has strong positions in both Chile and Argentina . In a survey of 10,000 business leaders and securities analysts, Anheuser-Busch ranked first among beverage companies in quality of products and services researched in FORTUNE magazine’s 2004 “Global Most Admired Companies” listing. The company also is one of the largest theme park operators in the United States, is a major manufacturer of aluminum cans and is the world’s largest recycler of aluminum beverage containers.


29 September, 2004