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A clink of glasses can communicate congratulations, reassurance, gratitude or belonging without requiring a shared language. AB InBev is turning that familiar gesture into the organizing idea for “Cheers to Beer,” a global campaign launched ahead of International Beer Day on August 7.
Created with Wieden+Kennedy, the campaign film moves through intimate moments across cultures and generations: encouragement at a concert, reassurance between friends, the discovery of a hidden beach and the celebration of buying a home. Budweiser, Corona, Michelob and Stella Artois appear across the vignettes, allowing AB InBev to promote the emotional and social value of the beer category while giving several of its largest brands a role in the story. The film closes with the company’s corporate platform, “To a future with more cheers.”
The creative is a continuation of “Let’s Grab a Beer,” the brewer’s 2021 Super Bowl film about the everyday conversations and relationships that happen around a drink. That campaign argued that an invitation for a beer is rarely just a transaction. It is often a request for company, honesty or connection. “Cheers to Beer” advances the same proposition for a post-pandemic world in which people are once again gathering at concerts, sporting events, holidays and informal celebrations.
“Back in 2021, ‘Let’s Grab a Beer’ reminded the world what it felt like to reconnect,” Wieden+Kennedy global chief creative officer Karl Lieberman said. The new work, he added, explores the different meanings that a toast can convey, including celebration, comfort, gratitude and encouragement.
For brand owners, the significance is not simply that AB InBev has produced another emotional film. The company is using corporate-level advertising to make a case for beer itself, rather than asking one label to carry the full burden of category recruitment. That approach is particularly valuable for a portfolio owner: the emotional idea can raise the relevance of beer while individual brands continue to compete through distinct propositions such as refreshment, premium hospitality, active living, sport or national heritage.
The strategy also creates flexibility. A corporate platform can feature whichever brands are strongest in a particular market, occasion or growth segment without changing the central human insight. It can accommodate full-strength beer, low-alcohol extensions and alcohol-free products while preserving a consistent message about participation and connection.
“Cheers to Beer” avoids the conventional structure of much alcohol advertising. It does not depend on product specifications, brewing credentials, celebrity endorsement or a single spectacular event. Instead, the product functions as social punctuation. The beer is present when one person recognizes another person’s achievement, anxiety or need for support.
That distinction matters. Consumers do not normally describe an evening by the beverage’s technical features. They remember who was there, what happened and how the occasion felt. By dramatizing the emotional job that the toast performs, the campaign gives AB InBev a more expansive competitive frame than taste alone.
The execution also demonstrates the difference between depicting crowds and depicting connection. Stadiums, festivals and concerts can provide scale, but scale does not automatically create emotional relevance. The film’s smaller gestures - eye contact, a quiet clink, a private celebration - supply the meaning. Larger cultural settings then show how widely the behavior travels. This combination lets AB InBev associate its portfolio with global reach without reducing the people on screen to generic party imagery.
That is consistent with the philosophy behind “Let’s Grab a Beer.” During the development of the 2021 work, AB InBev and Wieden+Kennedy deliberately focused on ordinary encounters rather than celebrity spectacle. The agency and brewer believed that the category’s strongest truth was not simply that beer appears at major celebrations, but that it accompanies countless smaller conversations that people often take for granted.
The latest campaign broadens that insight internationally. A toast is unusually portable because it can be localized without losing its basic meaning. Santé, prost, skål and yamas sound different, but the behavior remains recognizable. For a multinational alcohol company, that provides a rare balance between consistency and cultural adaptability.
The creative architecture is therefore more important than any single edit. Local markets can add relevant brands, languages, sporting properties, music partnerships and retail activations while retaining the same strategic asset: the clink as a symbol of acknowledgment.
The risk is that a universal platform can become generic. Many brewers, wine producers and spirits companies can claim celebration or togetherness. AB InBev’s advantage lies in executional ownership - repeatedly showing the specific social language of the toast, linking it to recognizable portfolio assets and maintaining the platform long enough for audiences to associate the ritual with the company. Without that consistency, “connection” remains a category cliché rather than a distinctive brand property.
The campaign launches at a favorable moment for AB InBev. In the second quarter of 2026, the brewer reported organic revenue growth of 5.6%, total volume growth of 0.9% and beer volume growth of 1.1%. Underlying earnings per share increased 23.4%, while normalized earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 5.8%.
The improvement was not confined to pricing. Beer volume also grew 1.2% in the first quarter, producing two consecutive quarters of positive momentum after an extended period of pressure. AB InBev reported record second-quarter beer volumes in Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador, while Brazil returned to growth. Reuters noted that the company’s quarterly revenue, profit and volumes exceeded analyst forecasts, although weakness in China and continuing challenges in the United States tempered the market response.
The portfolio mix is especially relevant to the campaign. Revenue generated by Corona, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra outside their home markets increased 17%, 19% and 21%, respectively, in the second quarter. No-alcohol beer revenue rose 27%, Beyond Beer revenue increased 44%, and the company’s wider Balanced Choices portfolio grew 13%.
AB InBev is backing that momentum with heavier investment. Sales and marketing expenditure reached $4.1 billion during the first half of 2026, 9% more than in the corresponding period of 2025. The company estimated that it maintained or gained market share in 70% of its markets during the second quarter.
That spending context changes how “Cheers to Beer” should be evaluated. The film is not an isolated corporate-purpose statement. It sits above a substantial commercial system involving global megabrands, sports sponsorships, premiumization, alcohol-free innovation, route-to-market technology and local activation.
Major events are one part of that system. AB InBev attributed some of its second-quarter momentum to the FIFA World Cup and reported strong growth for brands associated with international sport. The company’s results also point to a broader model in which global platforms create reach while individual brands convert that attention through specific occasion and lifestyle propositions.
For chief marketing officers, the lesson is that category storytelling works best when it is connected to commercial availability. Emotional demand creation must be met by the right pack, price, alcohol level, retail placement and brand for the occasion. “Cheers to Beer” can invite consumers into the category, but AB InBev’s premium, mainstream, no-alcohol and Beyond Beer portfolios are what allow the company to monetize that invitation.
AB InBev launched the campaign alongside a consumer-trends whitepaper created by Ipsos and IWSR in collaboration with the brewer. The research argues that beer and Beyond Beer increased from approximately 46.9% of total alcohol servings in 2019 to a forecast 50.7% in 2026. Beer alone increased from approximately 44.7% to 47.3% over the same period, with further share gains forecast through 2035.
The measurement deserves careful interpretation. The report expresses category share in “liter beer equivalent,” a standardized measure used to compare products with different alcohol strengths. It should not be read as a simple count suggesting that more than half of every individual alcoholic drink ordered worldwide is beer. It is a normalized share of total beverage-alcohol servings, including no-alcohol products.
The distinction between share and absolute volume is equally important. Independent IWSR analysis found that total beer volume in the world’s leading 21 markets declined approximately 1% in 2025, even as category value held relatively firm and no-alcohol beer grew. Beer can therefore gain share within total beverage alcohol while still experiencing absolute volume pressure in major markets. Wine or other categories may be contracting faster, while premium pricing and product mix can support value growth despite lower physical consumption.
That does not invalidate AB InBev’s category argument. It makes the argument more precise. Beer’s opportunity is not necessarily a return to broad, consumption-led growth across every market. It is an opportunity to capture a larger proportion of a more deliberate, fragmented and moderated drinking repertoire.
The whitepaper reports that participation and drinking frequency remain relatively stable across the markets studied, while consumers are drinking slightly less on each occasion. It also says the participation gap between legal-drinking-age Gen Z consumers and the broader drinking population has narrowed, challenging simplistic claims that younger adults have abandoned alcohol altogether.
Moderation is central to the opportunity. Approximately 93% of global no-alcohol beverage volume is beer, according to the whitepaper. Cost and a general desire to moderate alcohol intake were each cited by 26% of consumers who had reduced consumption, while calorie concerns and avoiding next-day effects were also significant considerations.
Separate IWSR research estimated that no-alcohol beer volume grew 8% across its leading markets in 2025, compared with a 1% decline for beer overall. The organization expects no-alcohol analogues across beer, wine, spirits and ready-to-drink products to expand substantially through 2029, driven in large part by consumers who want to participate in familiar occasions while moderating alcohol intake.
This makes “Cheers to Beer” potentially more inclusive than its title first suggests. The ritual being advertised is participation, not intoxication. A corporate platform centered on the toast can credibly encompass a conventional lager, a lower-calorie beer or an alcohol-free variant, provided the visual and verbal execution makes that choice visible.
The research also supports the campaign’s focus on experiences. Thirty-five percent of consumers identified social occasions as their primary motivation for drinking, while on-trade consumption remained broadly stable between 2023 and 2025. The report argues that consumers are becoming more selective about experiences but still spend on moments they consider memorable or emotionally worthwhile.
Premiumization remains part of that equation, although it is becoming more selective. The whitepaper calculates that premium-and-above alcohol volume grew at an annualized rate of 5% between 2014 and 2024, with premium beer growing 5.6%. At the same time, consumers reported greater spending pressure in alcohol than in several everyday categories.
The implication is not that consumers will pay more for any premium label. They will pay when the product, setting and symbolism make the upgrade feel worthwhile. Occasion quality is becoming part of value perception.
Bud Light does not appear among the brands highlighted in the Adweek description of “Cheers to Beer.” The campaign instead gives visibility to Budweiser, Corona, Michelob and Stella Artois. AB InBev has not publicly described Bud Light’s absence as a strategic decision, so the omission should not be treated as definitive evidence of a portfolio demotion. It is nevertheless notable given the brand’s continuing difficulties in the United States.
Bud Light’s decline began before 2023 but accelerated dramatically after its social-media collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney triggered a conservative boycott. The brand lost its long-held position as America’s top-selling beer and has not returned to its previous scale. The Financial Times reported that Bud Light volume was expected to fall to approximately 12.7 million barrels in 2026, compared with a peak of about 41 million barrels in 2007 and 2008.
Meanwhile, Michelob Ultra became the top-selling beer in the United States in 2025. Its active-lifestyle positioning, sports partnerships and lower-calorie credentials have aligned the brand with the moderation and wellness trends that AB InBev now emphasizes at corporate level. The company subsequently invested in additional Michelob Ultra production capacity and has continued expanding the brand through Michelob Ultra Zero.
For alcohol executives, the contrast is instructive. A strong category story cannot automatically repair a brand whose cultural meaning has fractured. Corporate advertising can create a favorable environment, but individual brands still require clear audiences, distinctive propositions and consistent signals.
AB InBev’s current momentum demonstrates the protective value of portfolio breadth. Weakness in one major label can be offset by growth in brands that meet different consumer needs, geographies and occasions. Corona offers an internationally recognizable premium and escapist proposition. Stella Artois occupies sophisticated dining and entertainment spaces. Michelob Ultra is associated with active balance and sport. Budweiser retains global heritage and event-scale recognition. No-alcohol extensions allow those equities to travel into moderated occasions.
The strategic challenge is to keep the corporate idea broad enough to benefit the portfolio without erasing those differences. “Cheers to Beer” should serve as connective tissue, not a substitute for brand positioning.
The most valuable feature of “Cheers to Beer” is its separation of category meaning from product differentiation. AB InBev uses the corporate platform to answer why beer matters, while its brands answer which beer, for whom and on what occasion.
That model can help large alcohol businesses manage increasingly fragmented demand. Consumers may drink less on an individual occasion while participating across more formats: conventional beer at a match, an alcohol-free beer after exercise, a premium bottle with dinner or a flavored ready-to-drink product at a festival. Winning does not require forcing every occasion toward the same product. It requires giving the portfolio permission to enter more occasions without losing coherence.
The campaign also shows why moderation should be treated as category development rather than defensive compliance. When alcohol-free and lower-alcohol choices are placed inside the same social ritual, moderation becomes additive. It lets consumers remain in the occasion and potentially remain loyal to the brand, even when their desired alcohol intake changes.
For that approach to work, the alcohol-free option cannot be presented as a lesser substitute hidden at the edge of the portfolio. It needs recognizable branding, quality cues, broad availability and a role in mainstream creative. AB InBev’s 27% quarterly growth in no-alcohol beer revenue suggests that the commercial opportunity is already material, even though the segment remains smaller than conventional beer.
Brand leaders should also distinguish emotional universality from creative distinctiveness. “People come together over drinks” is true but widely available. The ownable element is the behavior, visual code and language through which the truth is expressed. In this case, that is the clink, the toast and the unspoken message exchanged between people.
Finally, category campaigns require long-term measurement. Immediate film views or sentiment scores will reveal only part of the impact. AB InBev should be looking for changes in category consideration, beer’s perceived relevance among younger legal-age adults, associations with moderation and sociability, portfolio-level brand power, occasion penetration and the incremental performance of local activations.
“Cheers to Beer” arrives as AB InBev’s financial results give the message greater credibility. Beer is not returning to an uncomplicated era of mass-volume growth. Consumers remain financially constrained, health-conscious and selective, and performance varies sharply by market. Yet beer’s combination of familiarity, affordability, moderate alcohol strength, premium range and strong alcohol-free presence gives the category multiple routes to relevance.
AB InBev’s campaign succeeds because it does not attempt to argue those benefits one by one. It dramatizes the enduring behavior that connects them: people marking a moment by raising a glass to one another. The commercial task now is to ensure that, whatever is in that glass, AB InBev has a brand prepared for the occasion.
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