One very, very, skunked beer brand.
For those who aren’t familiar, skunking is a flaw that can occur in beers (usually non-American beers because of the preferences across the pond). All beers contain hops, which is what gives beer it’s bitterness, and gives the beer a “fruity” aroma which can only be described in one eloquently formed word: hoppy. Essentially the chemicals found in hops interact with other chemicals in the beer when they are hit by light, and are transformed into a more sulfurous compound, giving off a significantly “stinkier” smell. Green and blue light are the worst offenders, which is why so many companies choose brown glass to store beer rather than green or blue glass (which only block one or the other) or clear glass (which blocks nothing).
So, to recap: beer + light = gross. (unless you find it gross anyway, in which case just think “worse than usual”)
That said, one thing can be said about the brand created when InBev purchased Anheuser Busch: it got skunked. The UnderConsideration BrandNew blog has images up of the new… logo? It’s not for the weak of heart, so cover your children’s eyes and carry away the tender ones. It appears that they’ve taken all of the good associations that Anheuser had with it’s product, history, and tradition and have replaced them with some janky web 2.0 vector illustrations. Gone is the ornamentation of the “A” that we all associate with the longstanding tradition of Anheuser, a brand 148 years old (1860). That letter screamed of tradition and time, recalling the art-deco period. Now the type screams “corporate”, it has little to no personality, and the swish connecting the A and B in “ABInBev” seems to have no rationale. It’s like someone said, “hey, I bet we could make the loop of the B from the crossbar on the A. The cut off on the V is no better or logical. And, the worst offense of all, was taking the traditional, artistically rendered eagle and replacing it with that janky illustration that screams of modern web 2.0 branding. Examples you say? Firefox. Mailchimp. (both brands done by the same source) Skype. The telltale signs that it’s a brand related to web 2.0 include animals, arbitrary gradients, and vector artwork. Sometimes it works well. The three previously mentioned logos and illustrations do a great job conveying to the user that those are technology based products. Last time I checked, beer was not a digital product. I know some people try, but it’s not.
So what we’re left with is a new brand that says nothing about the products it sells or the tradition behind brewing those products. It speaks nothing to the history with it’s customers, and it cares nothing to carry on with what was good about the original. It tosses out logic in favor of a fleeting “contemporary” approach that will do nothing for it. This brand was skunked.