A complaint by Interbrew UK that an advert by US-based Anheuser-Busch denigrated its beer by poking fun at how expensive it was has been dismissed by the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
Interbrew alleged that AB's advert for its Michelob beer using the strapline 'Belgium is laughing at your expense' deliberately set out to target its own Stella Artois brand. The Michelob advert continued with the text: 'The average price for Stella Artois in bars in Belgium is £1.11 per bottle. In Britain, a bottle of Stella Artois costs £2.09. Reassuringly expensive ... at least in Britain.'
The ad concluded with the words: 'Michelob. Premium lager on both sides of the pond.'
Interbrew claimed that not only did this denigrate its beer but also that it made a misleading and unfair comparison because the retail price of all beer in the UK was greater than that in Belgium - due to duties and taxes which were beyond the control of the brewers - and that AB's price comparison for Michelob was not between the UK and Belgium but between the UK and the US.
While these complaints may seem fairly justified on the surface, the ASA said that it could not rule in favour of Interbrew for a number of reasons. Firstly, AB had pointed out that Interbrew had itself advertised Stella Artois as 'reassuringly expensive' for many years, and that its ads played strongly on the Belgian origin of the complainants' lager (despite apparently being set mostly in France).
With this in mind, AB said it considered it fair to compare the price of Stella in both Belgium and the UK, and that in the same way it was fair to compare the UK price of Michelob with that in its home market of the US.
It added that the line 'Belgium is laughing at your expense' was intended as a humorous way to convey this price message, and the ASA agreed that readers would realise that the advertisement was intended to counter Interbrew's 'reassuringly expensive' campaign.
As far as the price comparison was concerned, AB said it had used the most transparent source of on-trade pricing information in the UK, AC Nielsen, to obtain the UK prices. Since AC Nielsen could not provide on-trade prices for Belgium, AB used the Belgian prices provided by its own Belgian importer.
Only the seven bars used in the comparison sold the Interbrew's lager in bottles (the basis for the comparison, and clearly stated in the ad), as most Stella is sold on draught in Belgium. AB claimed that the prices quoted in the ad would have been similar if they had compared Belgian draught lager prices with UK bottle prices, but that a price comparison between Belgian bottled and UK bottled Stella Artois was likely to be viewed as more appropriate.
While AB agreed that retail prices in the UK could not be wholly managed by Interbrew, it pointed out that the 'reassuringly expensive' campaign was based on the retail price of Stella Artois in the UK. The ASA said that data supplied by AB had confirmed that the price comparison had been made with allowances for taxes and duties.
AB's ad was designed to show that Michelob is positioned as a premium lager in both the UK and the US, while Stella is only sold as a premium beer in the UK, a fact which the price comparison highlighted. The ASA said that it felt the advert fair and unlikely to mislead.