AB InBev to create awareness on Smart Drinking to reduce harmful effects of alcohol

NEW DELHI: This Global Be(er) Responsible Day, leading global brewer Anheuser Busch InBev (AB InBev) has announced a slew of initiatives in India that will contribute to the company’s Global Smart Drinking Goals of reducing the harmful use of alcohol by 2025.

The theme for GBRD this year is #DrinkSmartToday and #CelebrateTomorrow. AB InBev is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium.

AB InBev urged consumers to make smart drinking choices through engaging initiatives. In the previous year (i.e. Sep 2016) the company held street plays to spread the message of responsible drinking apart from launching a coffee table book titled ‘Experience Karnataka’.

To drive home the message during the festive season, leading bars and pubs across Gurugram and Bangalore held exclusive pub crawls through their flagship Respect The Road sustainability program. In the previous year, a total of 7500 servers and sellers were connected with, on the concept of responsible serving. Breathalyzer kiosks were installed at Bars in Cyber Hub – Gurugram, and community engagement activities were carried out at a school at Sangareddy.

On the occasion of Global Be(er) Responsible Day (GBRD) observed on September 15 every year, leading global brewer AB InBev reiterates its ‘Global Smart Drinking Goals’ of reducing harmful use of alcohol by end of 2025 by:

• introducing multi-year city pilots to reduce the harmful use of alcohol by 10%
• investing 1 billion USD in social marketing campaigns & related programs
• ensuring at least 20% of our global volume is No- or Lower-Alcohol 1
• placing a guidance label on all products to increase alcohol health literacy

This year AB InBev raised the pitch by a few decibels through educational on-ground initiatives and extensive use of social media. To begin with the company created a short video (with Filter Copy) to engage the Indian consumers on responsible alcohol consumption and allocating a designated driver within the group called Bob on any night of revelry. Who is your Bob is a campaign that urges consumers to always identify that one person in the group who will be the ‘Bob’ who will not be drinking, and hence also driving everyone in the group home.

Ben Verhaert, ‎Business Unit President, AB InBev – India said, “We are driving meaningful impact through our Global Smart Drinking Goals. Together, we are working to establish smart drinking social norms and to emphasize that making smart drinking choices affects everyone, every day. We know we have a role to play. And, we believe that to reduce harmful drinking, more needs to be done by us, our industry peers, families, civil society, and government.”

The company further spread the message by engaging with more than 1000 consumers at over 80 outlets across India. AB InBev has partnered with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) to work together to expand the message of Smart & Responsible Drinking.

Riyaaz Almani, President, NRAI (President – National Restaurant Association of India) said, “As the voice of the restaurant industry, NRAI leads initiatives that play a pivotal role in creating environments that promote safety. We’re happy to partner with Ab-InBev to further push this ideology and reach out to a larger community through our various channels and our network of members across India who constantly reinforce the practice of serving customers responsibly as well as sensitizing customers towards responsible drinking.”

AB InBev’s new campaign for this year, Who’s Your Bob was rolled out for consumers in four cities – Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai; to promote the message of ‘not drinking and driving’. These outlets were decorated with table mats, posters, bottle graffiti and GBRD merchandise on the theme of Who’s Your Bob. AB InBev employees came together in groups to meet and engage with servers, managers and consumers there and conveyed the message of drinking responsibly.

AB InBev has partnered with Ola, to make an Ola driver your Bob. As part of the association Ola Share passes were given to AB InBev’s employees who were part of the on-ground programme as well as exciting offers were made available for consumers using Ola, at certain outlets across four cities. Both corporates also engaged in a social media conversations, emphasizing their commitment to not drinking and driving.

To achieve a global culture of smart drinking consumers, there needs to be a change in behavior patterns. AB InBev has launched a multi-city pilot programme in six cities around the world to reduce the harmful use of alcohol by 10%, to drive this change.

AB InBev’s work to promote responsible drinking is one of the three core pillars of the company’s Better World plan, in the form of a Healthier World. The other two being Growing World and Cleaner World (in which work is being done with the communities around our breweries).