AB InBev's CMO Explains Why He Stopped Calling It 'Advertising'
TL;DR: AB InBev's global CMO Marcel Marcondes says the world's largest brewer has reframed itself from an advertiser into a provider of experiences — and credits a deliberate culture of 'creative effectiveness' for turning marketing into a growth engine.
Marketing as a growth driver, not a cost
AB InBev — the brewer behind Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona and Michelob Ultra, with a portfolio of more than 500 brands — has spent recent years rebuilding its marketing around effectiveness. Marcondes frames the shift bluntly: the company no longer thinks of itself as making ads, but as creating experiences people choose to spend time with.
That reframing is more than semantics. It changes what gets measured, rewarded and briefed.
What 'creative effectiveness' actually means
Creative effectiveness is the discipline of proving that better creative drives better business results — not just awards. AB InBev's Cannes-winning run in recent years has been matched by commercial growth, which Marcondes attributes to treating creativity as an investment with a return rather than a cost to be minimised.
The cultural piece is the hard part: getting finance, sales and marketing to agree that distinctive, emotional work is what compounds, and building the measurement to back it.
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The 'experiences, not advertising' line can sound like jargon, but the underlying move is real and transferable. When a business treats marketing as a growth function, it briefs for long-term brand building and short-term activation together, and it stops cutting the thing that drives demand the moment budgets tighten.
For smaller companies, you don't need AB InBev's budget to adopt its mindset: define what effectiveness means for you, measure it honestly, and protect your best creative when the pressure to cut arrives. The brands that treat marketing as an investment keep growing; the ones that treat it as overhead quietly shrink.
Quick FAQ
Who is AB InBev's global CMO?
Marcel Marcondes is the global chief marketing officer of AB InBev, the world's largest brewer.
What is 'creative effectiveness'?
It's the discipline of demonstrating that stronger, more distinctive creative work drives measurable business results — treating marketing as a growth investment rather than a cost.
The companies that grow treat marketing as an investment; the ones that stall treat it as overhead. AB InBev's real edge isn't a clever tagline — it's a culture that can prove creativity pays, so it keeps investing when rivals cut. That discipline is copyable at any budget. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Marketing only becomes a growth engine when a business can prove its creative works — effectiveness is a culture, not a campaign.
Does your organisation treat marketing as an investment or an expense — and how would you prove which?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Marketing Dive, AB InBev.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
