• Brandweek, Monday, February 13, 2006 11:46 AM

Beer marketers have long known that sporting events offer particularly good advertising opportunities. This is especially true for the major brewers, like Anheuser-Busch, which spent an estimated $300 million on sports-related advertising in 2004 and 2005. In addition to being the largest single sponsor for the Super Bowl, A-B also has a significant presence at this month's telecast of the Winter Olympics, the start of the Nascar season at the Daytona 500 and the NBA All-Star Game. In this wide-ranging interview, A-B's Vice President-Global Media and Sports Marketing Tony Ponturo discuss the brewer's objectives and strategies in using sports to sell beer. He says one of the keys is to balance TV advertising with point-of-purchase marketing. It's also important to handle the constant challenge of attracting new customers while retaining old ones.

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