Leuven and São Paulo, 1987–2004.

AB InBev is a name built from other names. Its full form, Anheuser-Busch InBev, joins an American brewing family’s surname to a contraction coined for a Belgian-Brazilian company, and each part records a merger. Wikipedia describes the group today as a Belgian multinational drink and brewing company based in Leuven, the university city east of Brussels, with its primary listing on Euronext Brussels.

The Belgian line begins with Interbrew. Wikipedia says Interbrew was formed in 1987 from a merger of two Belgian breweries, Artois and Piedboeuf. The Artois brewery, previously known as Den Hoorn, had been established by 1366, and the Piedboeuf brewery by 1812. Wikipedia lists Stella Artois, the Leuven beer, among the group’s brands. Interbrew bought a number of local breweries in Belgium and then, from 1991, companies abroad, starting in Hungary. Wikipedia lists Labatt of Canada in 1995, Bass and Whitbread in the United Kingdom in 2000, and the German brewers Diebels and Beck’s in 2001, the Gilde Group in 2002 and Spaten in 2003. Wikipedia says Interbrew operated as a family-owned business until December 2000, when it held an initial public offering and began trading on the Brussels exchange.

The Brazilian line is AmBev. Its name is short for Companhia de Bebidas das Américas, Portuguese for “Beverages Company of the Americas”, and Wikipedia says it was formed in 1999 by the merger of two Brazilian brewers, Antarctica, founded in 1880, and Brahma, founded in 1886, with its headquarters in São Paulo. Its portfolio has included beers such as Brahma and Bohemia and soft drinks such as Guaraná Antarctica.

In 2004 the two companies merged. Wikipedia says the combination of Interbrew and AmBev created InBev, headquartered in Leuven, and that it brought together beers from Belgium, Canada, Germany and Brazil. A Reuters report published by South Africa’s Mail & Guardian on 14 July 2008 gave the same short history: InBev, it said, was formed by the 2004 merger of Belgium’s Interbrew with Brazil’s AmBev, was based in Leuven and was run by a mostly Brazilian management team.

A St Louis surname joins the name.

The American line is older than either of its partners’ modern forms. Wikipedia says Anheuser-Busch was established in 1852 in St. Louis, Missouri, as Anheuser & Co. The 2008 Reuters report filled in the family story: Eberhard Anheuser bought the Bavarian Brewery in St Louis in 1860, and several years later his son-in-law Adolphus Busch took over, beginning the Busch family’s long run at the head of the company. The brewery’s beers included Budweiser, the Busch family of beers and Michelob.

In July 2008 the two companies came to terms. Wikipedia dates the announcement of InBev’s acquisition of Anheuser-Busch to 13 July 2008. The Reuters report of 14 July said that Anheuser-Busch had agreed to the takeover and that, according to people familiar with the talks, the combined company would be called Anheuser-Busch InBev. The report said the two sides and their advisers had spent the weekend in New York working through details such as the name of the combined company, the roles of Anheuser-Busch’s executives and the structure of the board, and that Anheuser-Busch’s chief executive, August Busch IV, would join the board.

The report also recorded two promises about identity. InBev had said the previous month, according to Reuters, that it would keep Anheuser-Busch’s St Louis home as the headquarters for its North American region, and that Budweiser would become the new company’s “flagship brand”. Wikipedia says the head office remained in Leuven, where InBev had been based.

A third merger tested the name again. Wikipedia says AB InBev’s acquisition of the South African company SABMiller closed on 10 October 2016, and that the new company is called Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, based in Leuven and listed on Euronext Brussels, with secondary listings in Mexico and South Africa and American Depositary Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BUD. The trade publication BeverageDaily, reporting on 11 October 2016, said the combined company would take AB InBev’s name, that the SABMiller name had disappeared, and that the new entity would be headquartered in Belgium. On the same day, it reported, AB InBev completed the sale of the Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime brands to Asahi Group Holdings, as agreed earlier that year.

Holding companies and the names they keep.

A corporate identity has a different job from a product brand. A product name speaks to the person holding the bottle or the device; a parent name speaks to investors, employees, suppliers and regulators, and it often has to stretch across trades that look nothing alike. A group that sells spirits and beer, or a maker whose catalogue runs from printers to ceramics, needs a name that does not tie it to a single shelf.

That is why parent names tend to fall into a few patterns. Some are contractions of an older, longer name, keeping the sound of a founding place or material while dropping the literal description. Some are the joined surnames of founders or the shortened names of two merged companies. Others are coined from scratch, built from fragments of words in another language so that they carry a mood rather than a meaning, and so that they can be registered as trademarks in many countries at once.

The visual system follows the same logic. A group mark is usually quieter than the marks it owns: a wordmark, a simple symbol, a restrained colour, designed to sit on an annual report, a factory sign and a business card without competing with the product names underneath.

From a contraction to a toast.

The group renewed its corporate identity in January 2022. Consumer Goods Technology reported on 18 January 2022 that AB InBev had unveiled a new visual brand identity, designed by the consultancy Prophet. The design, the publication said, introduced a new gold colour, a symbol representing the clinking of glasses at the moment of “cheers”, and a refined wordmark intended to modernise the company’s expression.

The identity followed a statement of purpose. According to Consumer Goods Technology, AB InBev had announced the previous month a new purpose, “We dream big to create a future with more cheers”, and the visual identity was meant to pay homage to the company’s history while looking forward. Richard Oppy, then AB InBev’s global vice president for global brands, said in a statement quoted by the publication that the simple and modern design connected with the spirit of optimism, ambition and celebration that came with the new purpose.

The leadership of the company also changed in that period. Wikipedia says Carlos Brito stepped down as chief executive in July 2021 after 15 years, and that Michel Doukeris, previously chief executive of the North American business for Anheuser-Busch, succeeded him. Wikipedia also records the 2013 purchase of Mexico’s Grupo Modelo, owner of Corona, and says AB InBev is controlled by Belgian families and Brazilian investors.

For a design guide, AB InBev shows how a company formed by three mergers can carry its history in a compound name and then add a simple symbol drawn from the act of sharing a drink. Compare Budweiser, the St Louis beer whose bowtie and script sit inside the group, and Stella Artois, the Leuven beer whose brewery line runs back to Den Hoorn. For this guide we use gold, bronze and ink with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep AB InBev’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.