AB InBev Smart Drinking: On a mission to drive moderation

In this episode of 'Sex, Soap, and Alcohol,' host Myriam Sidibé engages with Catalina Garcia Gomez, Global Director of Corporate Affairs at AB InBev, to discuss the company's revolutionary $1 billion commitment toward promoting responsible drinking. Catalina shares insights on the company's implementation of its Global Smart Drinking Goals over the past decade. These goals include investments in social norms marketing, expanding low and no-alcohol beer portfolios, testing evidence-based initiatives, and implementing guidance labels. The discussion delves into internal and external challenges, partnerships with public health experts, and the transformative impact of these initiatives on consumer behavior and the company's growth model. Catalina emphasizes the integration of smart drinking into AB InBev's core operations, ensuring sustainability and reinforcing that profit and purpose can mutually thrive. 

Transcript

Introduction: A New Approach to Drinking

SPEAKER_01 0:09

What happened? When a company built on selling more decides that its culture depends on people drinking. I am excited, to be joined by Catalina Garcia Governor, Global Director of Corporate Affairs at OpenWell. A 10-year,$1 billion commitment helps re-engineer drinking culture globally. And what that topic teaches us about power, accountability, and flour. I am here on TV, and this is tech, soap, and alcohol, where we explore how profit and purpose don't compete, but they reinforce each other. So I'd love to welcome Kata. Kata, we've been working on and off for a couple of years, really thinking about what's possible, been really at it for so long, and I know it's not an easy path at all.

The $1 Billion Commitment 

Global Smart Drinking Goals 

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Thank you so much, Miriam. What an amazing way to start the year speaking with you. It's truly an honor to be here. So 10 years ago, I was working for SAB Miller, and ABMBEF acquired SAB Miller, and I had the opportunity to move to New York to work at the global headquarters of ABIMBEF. And they asked me to lead an incredible program. You know, in 2015, the company launched what we internally called the Global Smart Drinking Goals. So they said, Cata, you have this challenge. We launched these goals, a bold commitment to help reduce harmful drinking and promote moderation. And I said, okay, I'm gonna take the challenge. Today I'm telling the story after 10 years. I'm super excited, Miriam, to share this with you and with the audience. So my first question was, What's the budget? And they said, Well, um, we committed to invest one billion dollars in social norms marketing to develop programs and campaigns to help reduce harmful drinking and promote moderation. So you have to work with the commercial team, with marketing, with sales, and ensure they invest that money in all these programs. And that's one billion dollars.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

One billion dollars, Cata. I mean, that's a huge commitment.

Implementing the Goals 

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yes, huge commitment. And and I said, well, okay, let me see how I'm gonna implement these goals, but um, maybe I can start like summarizing the goals, Miriam, so so the audience really understands what's this what was this commitment. So, first of all, again, the one billion investment in social norms marketing and programs, uh, to move from awareness to behavior change. So how we were using the strengths of beer, the scale of our company to do so. That was like the first goal. Second goal was expanding our no-alcohol beer and low alcohol beer portfolio. So that was something that it was really ambitious. And we said, okay, we we want to offer consumers what they want. Consumers want choices. We have an amazing portfolio, let's start doing so. The other goal was we need to test what are those evidence-based initiatives that really work, that really help reduce harmful drinking and promote moderation and responsible drinking. So we launched six city pilots around the world, different cities from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the US, and implement different initiatives to learn, to test, to measure, and see what works to scale up. And the other goal was around implementing guidance labels in our products in the countries that didn't have mandated labeling. So we wanted to bring the information to consumers so they can make better choices. So those four goals were all under the umbrella of smart drinking. And when I took the challenge, I said, well, what is social neurons marketing? How are we gonna invest this$1 billion? Who's gonna implement the city pilots? So yeah, the company I had this challenge, and coming back to how we implemented the goals was okay, yes, we have a role to play, but we cannot do this alone. We need experts, we need partners to help us implement these city pilots. How are we gonna do this? So I started searching, especially when I was saying, okay, what is this social norms marketing about? And then I remember Miriam when we first spoke because you were writing your book, the brands on a mission book. And um and I said, okay, I have Miriam. Miriam, she wants to learn a lot about what we're doing in South Africa with our campaigns. And she's an expert in purpose marketing, in brands marketing. So I wanna I wanna learn from her. And then I also started searching for other experts. You we started like, you know, building all this content. I started to learn about it so I could transfer this knowledge, these skills to our commercial team. Because, as you know, we are experts in marketing. We have been awarded two times as the creative marketer of the year. So we have incredible people that are experts in marketing. But how can we use the brands, invest this uh budget into changing behaviors, reinforcing positive behaviors to drink in moderation, to drink responsibly, so that consumers that really they love our brands, they connect with our brands in different ways. How can the brand speak to a consumer in a way that doesn't sound like an instruction telling you what to do?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

It's not a sectoring, it's more around bringing them with you so that you know you you become, and I think that's really an important way in which you know ABMB is like the leader in that space because I mean you are the what, the world's largest beer company, right? How many brands? Just remind me, how many brands actually put out there?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah, exactly, Miriam. Yeah, we are the world's uh uh leading brewer, and we operate in 150 countries. So so the the footprint is huge. So we have been in those countries for more than 100 years producing beer, producing amazing products that consumers love. So there's a lot of uh culture, there's a lot of uh uh the environment, the context that we consider when we design these kinds of initiatives and campaigns and programs.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Of course, of course, of course. But let's go back to the internal fight and how difficult it is, right? Because people underestimate um not only the scale of what you're talking about, one billion dollar investment is huge, but then mobilizing an entire company to align along those four goals that you discussed. But talk to me about how relevant was that when you were trying to explain that to public health stakeholders, right? How do you talk to commercial leaders versus some of the stakeholders? Do you use a similar frame? What changes, what are the big conversations and changes, just to make sure that your commitment is kept relevant. And I can think of many different ways in which I've seen you uh hold your ground, but talk to me a little bit about how important it is to use a frame that they can relate to.

Challenges and Internal Objections

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah. Let me start by saying that we have championed moderation and responsible drinking for more than 100 years. There's even a 1919 label in our San Luis archives that says Budweiser means moderation. So, yeah, so really what changed in 2015 is that we made that belief explicit and measurable. So when I spoke with the public health experts, with Jeff French, with you, with Bill DeYoung, and many others, it was about, yeah, we have been doing this for many, many years. We want to measure the impact, we want to learn how to do it better with greater impact. We have we want to invest this in the different programs, reinforce positive social norms. And what made it stick internally was clarity and leadership alignment because it came from the top, right? So everybody was on board, and everybody has the goals embedded in their day-to-day. So these goals became part of how brands planned, how innovation happened, and how the success was measured. The thing is that, yeah, we know how to do marketing, we know how to sell our products. It's how do we bring that knowledge to reinforce positive behaviors? What are those messages that are actionable, that connect better with consumers, that will add value to the brand equity because it's it's not an add-on, it's the brand itself connecting better with the consumers. And at the same time, how do we impact the communities? So speaking with marketing at the beginning was challenging because they were used to do things and promoting uh the campaigns by saying drink responsibly. It doesn't work. What are those messages that bring the consumer to change a behavior? To change a social norm. We need others to work. So also local governments. So if we're talking about don't drink and drive, we need also some law enforcement around. We need the campaigns to send a message to bring a solution because it's not only don't drink and drive, it's to tell the consumer that there are options so they can take an alternative transportation. So all that wording, the way we were designing the campaigns came together to make them effective. But it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy, let me tell you, measuring impact is not easy. Marketing knows how to measure impact, but we needed to bring that element on how to measure the change of the behavior of a consumer when decided what to drink.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

But talk to me a little bit about the choice smart drinking, because that was something that really resonated with me at some point. And I thought, you know, that's amazing. You are enabling smarter drinking. What exactly are you enabling? Information, options, social permission, environments, and I think it's a combination of all of that, right? But you know, I and that for me is unbelievable because it means that you are it's it's moving away from putting the onus only on the consumer, saying you are an irresponsible. Um, you know, because if you say responsible drinking, whereas smarter drinking is to say you can make a choice, and that choice is a choice that smart drinking is who we are.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Smart drinking means moderation, it's part of our DNA. So that made it easier to promote the brands to make consumers take informed choices by placing this guidance label very visible in our products in all the labels in the countries that there was not mandated labeling. So they have the information and take the better choices. And also, um, when we tested uh the different initiatives in the city pilots, more than 30 initiatives, we learned which ones were evidence-based and were really contributing to this 10% reduction of harmful drinking. So we learn about uh programs to reduce and eliminate um underage drinking, uh, programs to uh identify patterns of consumption in an early stage, bringing technology to bring this to a higher um reach, like the screening and briefing intervention, and road safety initiatives, all those things we learned that were effective, and we needed partners to join us and to bring all these initiatives into the ground and measure them. So there were many, many elements that helped us uh implement smart drinking in a way that everybody, the public health experts, understood uh how big this ambition was, how committed we were to do so, that we were in a journey of learning. And uh we learned what worked and what didn't work, and that's what we're doing now is really continue doing what worked, uh scaling up, and and bringing, of course, partners and experts all the way.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

And and I think you cannot, it's impossible to say that you've done this amount of work over the last 10 years without changing the system internally as well, right? And I think for me, um, you know, because it's a you know, reduction of harmful use of alcohol has so many different components to it, right? So um, you know, and you talk about the four pillars that you've been looking at social norms, marketing, guidance label, um, no alcohol um uh innovations, um, a city pilot. Is there one particular pillar that has changed the consumer choices the most, you would say?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Um, yes, Miriam. There's um one specific uh goal, as you call it, pillar, which is the one I would say the most transformative goal. That was the no and low alcohol beer goal. Not be yeah, not because it is no alcohol, but because it unlocked better occasions and encouraged lower ABB choices. Consumers shifted from higher alcohol options to beer, which is lower ABB alternative as I as I said it, supporting moderation while expanding occasions, right? So um although we didn't reach the the goal, we really sparked the trend to expand the port a folio of no alcohol and low alcohol beer, and um others follow us, so that was really transformative. We continue expanding the portfolio, and consumers love it. We have a beer for every occasion, we have even one after sports.

The Impact of No and Low Alcohol Beers

SPEAKER_01 16:57

I understand. There's a make a love else ultra, no position itself. Make a love ultra, yeah. So there you go. Who would have thought that you would think of an occasion after sports and think of beer, right? I mean, I think that's a really interesting one um for that. And I I mean, I know, for example, that um you did quite a lot even around the Olympics and uh the World Cup, for example, right? And I think that's that's been very transformative in the way a beer for the first time ever would have been uh a sponsor, right? Of the of the of the Olympics, right? Of the Olympics, exactly. And and talk to me a little bit about um what do you need to change in the way marketers sell and markers do their campaigns? What changed in their internal capability most because of these global smart drinking goals?

Marketing and Consumer Behaviour

SPEAKER_00 17:52

That's a very good point, Miriam. So as I mentioned before, it wasn't easy to bring all our commercial team together and let them know that yes, we are experts in creative marketing, but we needed to bring these elements to reinforce positive behavior. So we put together toolkits, as you may remember, but we wanted we didn't want those toolkits to be on a shelf. And yeah, we launched it and nobody's gonna see it. So it was a continuous training, continuous information to the teams, explaining them the methodology to develop social norms marketing campaigns. The authority and the practical examples were in the toolkit, but they needed to learn, they needed to practice. So we said, hey, why don't we create a competition among the marketing teams? More than 50 countries competing for the best smart drinking campaign using social neurons marketing. So they they learn from the toolkit, they learn from the experts. Miriam, thank you again. You have been part of this journey with Jeff, with Bill, with JC, with so many experts, bringing the teams and motivating them. And also we learn from them. We learn how they their creative mindsets and that their creative magic comes to life, and bringing that combination makes the brand stronger. Equity increases because we have measured that. Yes, they want to change behavior because they like it, they have the options, they enjoy the occasion. So all that allows us to really bring smart drinking as a mindset and not as a toolkit, as a book that stays on a shelf.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

So you are definitely selling less alcohol per person, but you need to sustain growth and let's not be, I mean, you are um, you know, a company that's leading the way. We are here at sex, soap, and alcohol, and we're not shy about the fact that you need to merge profit and purpose together, right? So talk to us a little bit about the logic that um continues giving you the license to continue investing in smart drinking.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Excellent. Thank you, uh Miriam, for the question. So we don't see it as selling less, we see it as selling better. Selling better, right? So it's a portfolio diversification, innovation. You know, the the no-alcohol beer, the liquid itself, it's amazing. We have been investing in technology and producing a better no alcohol beer every year. And and today I can say it's it's it's an amazing product. And also is uh a portfolio of moderation-friendly choices, right? Right, future-proof the business itself. And one thing uh we need to bring in the conversation is the the the latest WHO, the World Health Organization, they reported that harmful alcohol use has declined by over 20% globally since 2010, while beer volumes increase, showing that growth and moderation can move together. And the other thing, Miriam, is that the consumers want choices for moderation, and we offer them. And the flavors are incredible, the brands are for every occasion for these platforms that we mentioned around sports, for festivals, for music, for enjoying a nice meal with friends, for so many occasions. So I think that's the beauty of it. We continue growing, we are selling better, and we are offering more choices.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

This is amazing. Thank you so much, Kata. I'm just let's talk about the playbook because what you are doing is at the forefront of not only the industry in which you're playing, but also in a lot of companies and where you are. And there are many industries that need to learn from your experiences. Let's start with partnerships, because so much of this can has happened because of partnership. Obviously, with uh public health experts, you've discussed NGO regulators. You know, is there something that you've had to like a bit surrender to earn more credibility with those partners? Is it around maybe slowing down, giving them more credit, um, maybe investing more in uh, you know, in in in, of course, data and evidence base, um, you know, about the control of the narrative? Because it's it's it's a scary path to say I'm going to invest this and then I'm going to watch to see where I am, right? So talk to us a little bit about the kind of partnerships that have been at the forefront of delivering a$1 billion bet or goals.

Partnerships and Transparency

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, thank you. Yes, I would say transparency and consistency are key elements for trust and to make a partner, a partnership successful, right? And also embedding measurement methodologies and the discipline of learning from those uh measurable impacts and replicate what works. So, for that, we brought partners to help us measure the impact of what we were doing. As you know, we have the A B and B Foundation that mainly their role is to help us measure the impact, and they bring experts from the public health sector, experts in social norms, in impact measurement. And you know, always things need to be grounded in evidence. And when you have that, and when you learn over the over the years, that was what what we did in 10 years, is learning what really works, what was the evidence for the things that work, that allows us to decide what to replicate and which partners continue with us. We have been bringing partners every year more, especially locally, right? So that combination of knowledge with partners from different backgrounds and different footprints in terms of the geographies where they operate, really bring uh the project into a level that allows us to be a model uh to follow to others, right? This consistency, this transparency that applies for any industry, right? So and and and the commitment from the top, as I mentioned before, that's that's key in the execution of the of the whole strategy.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

You know, in many countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, we're talking about a single mom with a bar who's selling, right? But the consumers, this you know, three continents that I've just mentioned represent the next billion consumers, right? They have a lot of informal markets, weaker regulatory infrastructure, and different drinking culture. So, what does responsible growth look like in practice when you're operating with all those different constraints for you? Or have you seen something you know in the how parts in here that is um you know distinctively different because you obviously cannot compare, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, that how is very important, and you talk about a how with consumers and how you you connect with them through the brands, and the how with retailers, how you connect with them through the playbooks on how to sell responsibly, how they really comply with the code of marketing and communications when selling, promoting, and serving our beer. So they get they they receive training and we partner with their authorities as well, right? With local authorities, so that we ensure that those businesses are responsibly, that those businesses are not selling to miners, that they ensure the experience of the consumers when they come to their to their small mom and pop shop, the tiendas de bodegas, is a positive experience, right? So that's something we work with these more than two billion consumers and more than six million customers to ensure that is that that is really embedded. Uh, otherwise, they won't grow. They want the these businesses want consumers to drink in moderation. They don't want consumers that are wasted, right? They want consumers to drink responsibly. In that way, the business grows, grows, the consumers have a positive experience. And also just to bring to the conversation, these retailers play an important role in their communities. So it's everything is interconnected, right? When you do good business and you do good for the communities, it's all share value. Everybody wins.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I mean, it's been 10 years since you've been on this journey of, you know, obviously investing$1 billion. How have you actually recorded some of the evidence in terms of, for example, really trying to figure out, you know, whether or not you've captured everything that there is to be captured? Have you been working with academics? Talk to us a little bit about this journey.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yes, Miriam, we have been working with academics, and um the Georgetown University um has been with us the whole journey. They assessed our work, documented what worked, what didn't work. Um they follow our successes, the tensions, the challenges. And it was with the Business for Impact team, Bill Nobelli, Leslie Crutchville, Ladan Manteggi, and you, Miriam, also. You were part of this team helping us measure the impact, understand the strengths, what worked. And the conclusion was very clear. The global smart drinking goals were bold, present-setting and imperfect, but transformative, as the team from Georgetown said. So very happy to have the academics guiding our way and um continue with us for the for this journey that doesn't stop.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

And how can other industries, there is so many lessons here to be learned from the ABMB experience, right? I mean, um, not only the scale of the ambition, the scale of the implementation, the scale of internal implementation as well. All this is really important. So, what's next for you, Kata? What's next for ABMBEV after such a big goal? What's the next thing? Are you gonna invest two billion?

Global Impact and Future Goals 

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah, there are another 20 years for sure. Investing 2 billion in 20 years for sure. Yeah, that's that we want to continue doing what works, right? And and that's our uh most important uh uh challenge or goal, which is scaling up what works, to drink in moderation, to bring the best options, the best products to our consumers and the best partners like you, Miriam.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Thank you very much. Here's two more cheers, right? To our listeners, I leave you with one question. What would it take for responsibility to become strategic in your industry? And I think if this conversation sparks something for you, I want you to follow us on your chosen listening platform, share your thoughts, and give us a five-star rating. Again, I'm Professor Miriam Tibide. This podcast is brought to you by Brands on a Mission. We help organizations, brands achieve social impact and business growth for purpose. Head over to Brandsonamission.com to learn more.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

My name is Kappa, and I'm on a mission to drive moderation, to bring consumers and enjoy every occasion with beer.