Another direction of the unfortunate Europeanisation of Anheuser-Busch was the kind of music events that it sponsored. Companies sponsor cultural and sporting events in order to promote their wares to attendees. Anheuser-Busch sponsored a lot of country music festivals where people are likely to know and appreciate the Budweiser beer brand.
But the Belgian CEOs of the newly acquired Anheuser-Busch didn’t like or understand American country music. They started canceling these sponsorships and instead invested into techno music festivals. In Belgium, this is something that works for beer companies but in the US it doesn’t. Enormous amounts of money were redirected from advertisement that works to the advertisement that doesn’t.
It’s really funny that the social class which invented the expression “cultural competence” doesn’t believe that America deserves a culturally competent approach. Its representatives want to be in America but they don’t accept the possibility that America has culture.
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