Global Drinks Intel: You joined Anheuser-Busch InBev just over a year ago after seven years working on White Claw with Mark Anthony Brands.
Davin Nugent, global head of innovation for Beyond Beer at Anheuser-Busch InBev: I’ve spent that time delving into everything ABI. While it’s only been a year, it’s felt like ten – it’s actually been fascinating. I’ve always looked at the large, blue-chip PLC’s as being very different to the track that I’ve taken.
To understand the way a business of this scale operates was one of the attractions of coming to ABI.
GDI: Mark Anthony was very much an industry disruptor. How does ABI differ, from the inside?
DN: You look at it and think it’s going to be like a freight ship to move, because it’s such a large beer business. One thing I’ve been very surprised at is that, once we decide to do something, the pace is very quick. You can have a preconceived idea that it’s laborious to make a change because of scale, but that’s not the case. Once you have a strong idea that’s been well substantiated, then the business is impatient to get it done.
Just before I joined, the mindset had changed to recognising that we have to get innovation right and we have to have organic growth. I was very much of the view that innovation isn’t just the shiny new thing – renovation is as much a part of innovation because that’s what keeps the plane in the air. It’s looking at the existing brands and how we ensure they’re fit for purpose before we move to the shiny new things.
I’m very happy with seeing how ABI has taken that on board and that it’s very much part of the focus of the business.
GDI: What’s your role and what are the lines of reporting?
DN: I report to the chief marketing officer, Marcel Marcondes. Before I joined, the global innovation role was across both beer and beyond beer. That the business sees the opportunity for beyond beer as being so great meant they split the role. I look after beyond beer and beyond beyond beer, which contains the other elements that we have in the business.
My remit is to look at at how we approach beyond beer across all of our core markets and put some rigour around that. Nobody wants the global role to police what you can and cannot do – you have to add value. That means understanding what the markets’ needs are and seeing how we can apply our portfolio first and foremost, or whether there’s a need for blue-sky thinking and the creation of new products. If there is, can we do it across more than one market and be smart in our approach?
Over the last year, I’ve worked with the teams to get them to understand what each other are doing and then build from there. Nobody has ownership of the best ideas.
GDI: Is it fair to link your previous role at Mark Anthony and the opportunity ABI can see for growth beyond beer, specifically within hard seltzer?
DN: My history has been about how to bring flavour into the beer occasion. What I’ve done is try to bring about disruption within the category. As ABI sees that as an important pillar for the future, it makes sense to look at where people have had success in the past. If you just apply beer thinking to the beyond beer category, you’re not necessarily going to see all the opportunity.
I’m not blowing my own trumpet, it’s just smart to look beyond bringing beer people into the role and hope they can adapt.
GDI: What did you find in your play box on day one?
DN: I needed to get through the acronyms first! The business has a totally different number of acronyms versus other businesses – that took a while.
The company has so many people – and so many with great longevity – that it’s not as if someone hands you ‘The ABI Way’ playbook. You have to figure things out because people have grown up with it. First and foremost, I had to get an understanding of how the company works.
At Mark Anthony, we applied the concept of ‘100 days of listening’ – you ask questions, but you don’t start implementing what you want to do until you’ve understood the way the business works, for good and for bad. I did the same when I started at ABI.
On the innovation side, there wasn’t a global beyond beer team at that point, so I worked on that with the individual units across the world. Brands-wise, I was well aware of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, then there are brands like Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish from South Africa, which both have huge opportunities to grow. I wasn’t previously aware of the scale of the beyond beer business in South Africa – that’s been a great plus for me.
