Citing changes in customers' viewing habits, Anheuser-Busch plans to increase its marketing budget for 2007 - and shift spend to online and cable.
"We will be significantly increasing our total spent, with revisions in our media mix to reflect the viewing habits of our consumers," Anheuser-Busch Chief Financial Officer Randy Baker told investors in New York, Ad Age reports. Those revisions, he said, include a "significant shift into cable" and a doubling of digital spending.
Anheuser-Busch claims that its target audience spends two-thirds of its television-viewing time watching cable TV. The brewer plans to maintain current levels of advertising for broadcast sporting events, suggesting that it will cut ad spend for prime-time network TV.
Anheuser-Busch spent $287.2 million on network TV during 2005, around 47 percent of its overall media spend, according to TNS Media Intelligence.