Anheuser-Busch is encouraging its distributors and companions to exchange the time period “domestic” with “American” when advertising beer, arguing that the time period higher displays the business’s identification.
In a Wednesday letter titled “A Call for American Beers,” CEO Brendan Whitworth expressed his dissatisfaction with the longstanding use of “domestic” to describe American-made beer, saying it reveals up on bar menus, at beer stands, in grocery aisles and is utilized by syndicated information suppliers “too frequently.”
Whitworth begins the letter with six phrases, “I don’t like the word ‘domestic.’”
“I’m asking the Anheuser-Busch team and our wholesalers to make the change. Change the bar menus, change the venue boards, change the signs, change their reports, change their jargon, and insist upon American. I hope other American brewers and wholesalers will join us,” he additionally wrote.
Whitworth can also be calling on advertising and analysis companies corresponding to Circana and Nielsen to take action as nicely.
Whereas the phrase just isn’t “necessarily an incorrect adjective to use,” he mentioned, it “just doesn’t fully capture the spirit and passion that’s intrinsic to the American beer industry and its brands.”
It additionally falls in need of capturing “the pride we should all take in products made right here in this great country,” Whitworth continued.
The transfer comes amid a patriotic push from the White Home.
President Donald Trump signed an government order on his first day in workplace to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Whitworth didn’t point out Trump’s government order in his letter.
Whitworth — who served within the Marines earlier than becoming a member of the CIA — was named as Anheuser-Busch chief government in July 2021 and led the corporate by way of challenges related to its controversial 2023 Bud Gentle advertising marketing campaign that includes transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which sparked backlash and a big boycott by customers and public figures.
Whitworth tried transferring past the controversy by launching a slew of patriotic or humorous advertising campaigns targeted on the corporate’s broader position in American tradition.
These additionally highlighted the employees liable for making the corporate’s beer and its contributions to the financial system and communities.
Within the Wednesday letter, Whitworth underscored that American beers ought to higher promote that the product is made by “American hands.”
“They are brewed by American workers who receive American wages. They rely on American farmers and on American raw material suppliers. They support American causes like the military and first responders,” he mentioned.
“They pay American taxes. And they exist because of decades of capital investments made in hundreds of local communities, right here across this great country.”
Whitworth mentioned that 99% of the beers that Anheuser-Busch sells within the U.S. are made within the nation.
Moreover, 99% of the substances the corporate makes use of come from American farmers.
“Together, let’s leave ‘domestic’ in the rear-view mirrors of those good ol’ American pick-up trucks. Let’s all take more pride in our American beers,” Whitworth mentioned within the letter.
