Published on: 05 December 2022
Beginning this year, Cannes Lions announced that it would honor Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) as this year’s Creative Marketer of the Year. Given the enormous body of Lion-winning work over a sustained period of time, AB Inbev and its in-house agency, draftLine, have established a reputation for producing brave, creative, and innovative marketing solutions. That’s why we sat down with Tracy Stallard, Global Vice President of draftLine and the IRG100 participants in 2022 to exchange thoughts on the benefits of in-housing.
"We started draftLine about five years ago for several reasons; for instance, we felt the need to have a better understanding of our consumers, which is also the reason we started with social listening. We also realized early on that the world of content and media is only getting closer together, and we didn't have a good solution on how to properly address that as an organization. Nowadays, we can directly learn from our consumers and turn insights into engaging content. In doing so, we can explore different strategies to optimize our advertising techniques and develop innovative alternatives on the back of it."
“We are really focused right now on evolving from advertising solutions to creative business problem-solving custom attributes solutions. For example, when we had to launch our biggest innovation in Brazil in the middle of the pandemic. Our team produced AB InBev's first music show, a YouTube live streaming concert series that promoted the rollout of the Brahma brand's Duplo Malte beverage in Brazil, among other labels. We had never done a music production but were able to experiment with selling beer directly through the live stream and learn while implementing." For several months it was the biggest live streaming event in Brazil on YouTube, and it marked InBev's most successful product launch in the country.
When asked about the role of an in-house agency in driving humanized growth, Tracy said, "We still love working with external agencies because they can bring in fresh perspectives and challenge our thinking. However, they're not necessarily able to spot the same opportunities as a team that works closely with the business. For example, during the pandemic, the draftLine team designed a voucher sales system where consumers could buy a gift card that they could redeem in the future at their local bar or restaurant. This way, we secured the cash flow of our client community. We replicated that across 25 countries in the world. The ability to make that happen is very powerful and creates value for multiple stakeholders”.
Inspired by Tracy Stallard, Global Vice President of draftLine and IRG participant in 2022
