Pedro Earp on the Business of Beer (Podcast)

Disruptive Growth, that was actually his title. Now he runs all of the advertisement and marketing for just an immense consumer product group. It's really just an astonishing role. And we talked about everything from how do you manage marketing during a pandemic lockdown? What do you do when sports stops? And what do you do when you have a product

whose name include it's the word corona. It's really quite interesting and if you're at all a person who is fascinated by branding, marketing, advertising, you will find this to be just a fascinating conversation. With no further ado. My conversation with A b InBev's chief marketing Officer, Pedro Earp. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.

My special guest today is Pedro Earp. He is the chief marketing officer at A b in Bev, one of the world's largest brewery with a hundred and seventy thousand employees in fifty countries, with two hundred and sixty breweries and thirteen thousand owned retail locations. Previously, Pedro was the former head of M and A and the former head of their venture capital fund. A b in Bev has such August brands as Budweiser, Corona Stella, dex Hoole, Garden, Modela.

The list goes on and on and on. Pedro Earp, Welcome to Bloomberg. Hi Berry, thanks for having me. So your resume is really quite confounding and fascinating. You were you were head of M and A at a very large company at a very young age. Tell us about that. So I joined the company back at the Brazilian side of the company. You know a BI it's a combination of a Brazilian company of Belgium company and how's the bush in the US model in Mexico. So it truly

became a you know, a globe organization. But I started on the Brazilian side, you know, off the company in the year of two thousand as a trainee. And then as soon as I kind of finished my training program, they invited me to join the you know, the marketing them and a department. And at the time, the brewers grow a lot, you know what's doing, was starting to do some some international expansion. So I thought it was a very good opportunity to to join them in the department.

And then two years later, you know, my my boss ended up going to uh to an operation. We have this about going to headquarters and and also going to operations, and then I had the opportunity to have the division. So in a very very exciting time because we're expanding Latin Americas, a lot of things to do at the time. So you've had a couple of really interesting titles. One was chief disruptive Officer, another was head of the venture

capital unit. Tell us about some of these jobs. Why would a giant beer brewery and distributor have a venture capital unit. Yeah, so we you know, we started that trying to accelerate our our innovation efforts. From two thousand six,

two thousand seven one. You know, until then, the company relied a lot in in inorganic growth and en mn a uh and and then at some point in time, you know, we we became a very big organization, so and then they started being less lesser creative, and we really turned our focus into again and growth and innovation being a big part of it. But we, you know, we we didn't go as fast as we wish we

we could go. You know, sometimes when we have a big organization, and especially an organization that is growing a lot, it's score business, it's very hard, you know to divert some of the focus on some of the of the people and some of the money, you know, to really focus on innovation. So, you know, our CEO and the board in thousand and fifteen, they decided to create you know, a separate unit to be fully focused on on innovation

and the future. So this is kind of when when we started the z Expangers a group which is the kind of the innovation armongst ab I. And then when I was talking to you know, to Carlos Brittle, which is our our CEO, about the organization, he said, look, there's only one thing that that I would like to ask, you know, you to find the mandate and the areas that again is going to explore. But you know, I really like your title to be, you know, what the

group to be called disruptive Growth group. And then I said, look, I know if you put it disruptive growth, I mean actually at the beginning he didn't even say growth, it's a disruptive group. And I said, people are just gonna think we're gonna get in rooms, you know, keep the chairs, you know, and and say some silly stuff. And so

I convinced him on disruptive growth. But in a way, you know, he kind of asked me to to have that title to the group because he wanted to make sure that the message to the organizations that this group would be disruptive even within right, We'll try to do something that maybe it was not the best thing for a core business, could cannibalize our core business too, could create some you know, crazy disruption from with them. And that's why I had this kind of funny, funny title.

We're gonna talk more about the VC Fund a little later. It's now over a billion dollars, but let's talk about the elephant in the room. Obviously, everything has changed with coronavirus and the lockdown and the pandemic. I know, I'm drinking a lot more than I was pre lockdown. How has COVID nineteen impacted your business? What is this done both for and restraining sales? Yeah, you know, it varies a little bit depending on the you know, the country that that you were in. In general, I know it

has been it has been tough for the business. So we had a tough you know, second quarter off the year. We have a lot of exposure to emerging markets where the own trade you know, bars and restaurants are significant part of the business and because of lockdown, of course this this piece of the business was truly shut out. So it's been tough for business. Right The business wasn't oppression of the second quarter. We have seen improvement since then.

When just think it is good news and always see a lot of markets reopening, but you know, I think it was it was. It was a very tough but great learning experience for us. You know, we had to really focus on people and focus on our on our consumer and I think we were going to come out of this crisis, you know, much stronger than than then we got in so so your title is chief marketing officer. How quickly can you change your marketing strategy or even

your advertising in the midst of a lockdown? I know a lot of this stuff is done quarters in advance. How quick can you pivot once the lockdown starts? Yeah, I mean in our case was was really fast for two reasons. You know. The first one is that we have big operations in in China. You know, we have market share in China and and roughly six of the total premium via marketing in China. And we saw when he got started in China, so we had a verierly one.

We had an indication of how we could look like in other in other places, and the seriousness of the of the crisis. You know, as soon as we saw things started in China two weeks later, we set up a global task force which allow us to react and puch faster. And and the second thing is that really I think the you know, the culture of organize the organization is a culture of of ownership. You know, our employees really they behave like corners and they fight for

the business like if it was their own business. So it was you know, during the during the crisis were all hands on back, you know, everybody working seven to adjust the plans, change the plants, you know, scrap campaigns, you know, even I mean we uh you know internationally and globally we owned the Corona brand, right, so for especially for Corona, we had to make to make a lot of changes. So you know, it was it was tough times, but again I think was an opportunity for

growth and the company is coming out are stronger. So you mentioned Corona earlier, the Corona the beer. How do you have to pivot in the face of a pandemic that has the phrase Corona in the first half of it? What what sort of adjustments do you have to make? And is that the same in it in every country? How do the translations effect If people are superstitious about

the beer, what what do you do in response to that? Yeah, so the I mean the first thing of course that we paid a lot of attention, right is through social listening what people are talking about and if you're making associations or not with you know, with the beer, and mainly you know, there was little noise of association with the beer and the associations who are mainly people you know making fun of you know, things related to the beer and things like that, so we really didn't have

you know, quite an impact. What we thought, given the times, you know, that we should be silent for a little while with the with the beer brand, not not to create even more confusion. So we uh, you know, we

decided to be out for a little bit. We're coming back now, you know, with the court on a brand all over the world communication, but on all the other brands, we adapted, and I think the treat here was too to stop thinking a little bit about selling beer because that was out of the forefront of people's priorities, and see how consumers were changing, what were their immediate needs, and then what our brands had a role, you know, and how they could help, you know, people during the

during the pandemics. So just to do nation to use some examples, you know, Nicola bol Train that you asked is our balanced lifestyle brand. Ready has like two grounds of carbs and it's for people that I have an active lifestyle and we at the very start of the of the crisis, a lot of people starting to exercise

at home. So we created the Nikola Boltra movement, which every single week we had kind of homework out fashions that ended up with a headcur and n e J like Sibo Ioki for example, that we had and it was always a great success, and or Nikola Bolt. During the time, I had more engagement and views than than sports, you know, brands and and and treatness appeals and things like that. So you know, that's kind of one example.

Another example, it's in Brazil. We had a huge relationship with country music singers and and of course because of the crisis, a lot of shows are canceled. You know, we use the fact that we had already this relationships and we had sponsorships and things like that, and we decided to do live streams and stead of having live concerts,

and it was a massive, massive success. You know. So today the day out of the top ten most watch videos on on YouTube of all times, five of them for some of the our live streams, you know, in Brazil, we had more than to an app didn't views you know, on the live streams. Again, people were at home, blocked in, they were bored, but they still wanted to kind of

enjoy themselves. So I mean it was a period of really trying to understand how consumers are changing, trying to live aside a little bit, you know, the the attempt to sell beer and too, you know, to grow the business in the short run, and it was more about understanding how what people needed and how our brands could create a meaningful relationship with them by providing what they needed the most. So historically sports has just been huge

for marketing all sorts of things, certainly beer. You guys were the lead sponsor of the World Cup. How do you adjust when so many sporting events are canceled in March April May, and then what do you do now suddenly between the NBA and the start of the NFL and the end of the baseball season and we just finished the U S Open, how do you adjust to this sudden onslaught of of games played in these you

know COVID bubbles. Yeah, it's uh, you know, the need for enjoyment and the passion for sports us still there, but again people are having to enjoy it in different ways. So again we didn't obsess about understanding, you know, how people are still trying to enjoy sports and see how we can help them. So to to mention a couple of examples, in some of all markets, we saw that people are because they were not going to the status anymore, you know, the pregame. People had more time to enjoy

you know, the pregame. So for ex with some of our teams, you know that we're sponsored in a lot of countries, we start doing live stream off of the pre games in a lot of countries, you know, and we had a lot of people they used to go to the stadium, so they wouldn't watched, you know, any

any of the pre games. They started tuning in and we had massive audiences you know, joining the live stream like one hour before the match, were half an hour before the match, something that didn't kind of an occasion that didn't exist before, right, So that there was kind of one one example. Another example, you know, you mentioned the NBA and what we what we try to do. We teamed up with with Microsoft, you know in the US, and we are basically providing people the opportunity to watch

the NBA games. Right. We have we have a stand you know in the stadiums you know, Microsoft and ourselves, and we have expectators there and they are basically in a you know, in a virtual environment where they can not only watched the game from different angles, you know, as if they were watching it live, but they can also interact with other people that are on the understand

and people that are watching the game on TV. They can see the people understand So again, there's kind of a new way for you to watch sports and and and that's what we we've been trying to do, you know, to understand that the passion is there, understanding that, you know, the behaviors might change, but then how can we adapt

to this behavioral change. Yeah, the the NBA seems to have done a better job having live appearing fans through those screens on the sides of the basketball court as opposed to just putting cutouts and and some other attempts have not been as creative. I've been watching the NBA playoffs and it almost feels like they're real fans in

the seats. Yeah. Again, you know, I think the physical interaction, you know, in the proximity off people, it's something that that of course everybody misses, right, And and that's something that technology is trying to to address, and I think it's getting better and better. So you know, we see that the quality of the of the interactions there you're having to zoom or through you know, Microsoft teams and

and other things. That's getting better. But again I'm sure people you know, and time allows, and hopefully we're going to have more effective treatment and vaccines very soon. I'm sure people are going to be very eager to physically, you know, attend go to stadiums again. So I'm curious, how does a partnership like that come about. Do you pick up the phone and call the head of marketing and Microsoft and say, hey, I have a great idea how we can do something innovative at a at a

basketball game. How how does a joint project like that actually happen? Yeah, you know, it starts with their relationships, not only the relationships with the teams, but also the relationship with other sponsors. Right in a way, in a way, we are all we're all on the same boat, you know, the leagues, the teams, the sponsors and everybody. And during

this time, you know, the collaboration increased dramatically. You know, You're were in touch again all over the world in all types of sports, you know, not only with the teams in the leagues, but also other sponsors. See what are the things that we can you know, do together in order to to make sure that we continue to provide our customers with the experience they had before. And

also from this collaboration. A lot of you know, things like that have happened during COVID, you know, and and it's the the usual thing you know that I think crimes like this, you know, bring people together to try to figure out what to do, you know, and that that's how these things came about. So Pedro, let's stay with the world of sports. You guys have been giant advertisers on events like the Super Bowl. How do you quantify your return on that sort of investment? What are

you looking at? How do you measure if something is a success or not? Tell us about the thought process there. Over the years, I think we've been getting better and better and measuring, you know, kind of the returns of marketing activities. You know, we have we have an analytics center in India, you know that kind of collects everything that we do and then the consumer response and trying to qualify are the returns that we have. But some of these things and all there you have to take

the bet. You know. Again, super Bowl is it's like probably the biggest sporting event, you know, in the world. You know, every single year, the number of vie balls that you have in there, and and that's one of the few you know events that that we have on TV that people actually stopped to watch, you know, the commercials. So of course, I mean we're always trying to measure

the learning things like that. But in a way, you know, there's a lot of you know belief h that something like that has a very high engagement with people, and and and the reach that you get it it's a uh, you know, it's very hard to get to get somewhere else. What we've been doing, you know, for the past years has been to be a little bit more intentional about about what kind of brands we advertise, you know on

Super Bowl. So in the past, we'll just advertising all kind of the biggest brands that we had, and again, these brands are the ones that probably have the most known brands, so I'm not sure the eyeballs, you know, it's really what the brand needs. So we started to for example, using more you know, premium brands like stell Us to our on Super Bowl. We started using more you know innovation like bloodlight celts or you know for

Super Bowl. So we tried to be a bit more intentional on on how we how we go about it. But you know that I think there's a fundamental game that an event like that, with the level of engagement, the number of people, it's something that you know, we we should be doing. I have to ask what seems like a little bit of a wacky question, which is why on earth does a beer giant have a venture capital funds? What does a b in BEV get out of this? Yeah, that's a that's a good question there.

You know what when when we started our adventure capital funding, Mad you know, an entrepreneur that he had basically a homebrewing business, but he was you know, a marine before and he he used to work on intelligence and he was explaining to me that one of the things one of the challenges they face for you know, big carriers, it's you know, the big career they were trying to assimulate will be the best way to think, you know, a carrier some sort of you know enemy was trying

to do it. And at the end, you know, the carrier is kind of prepare, you know, to to I had another carrier, or to fight airplanes or to fight you know, len to see missilesand things like that, and they him to the conclusion that probably the most effective way of dominating and destroying a carrier would be to have you know, hundreds of pirate speed boats attacking the carry at the same time, because the carrier didn't have

kind of defenses for that. And he was saying, that's kind of, you know, a good analogy towards startups are kind of doing two big CPGs, you know, the big CPGs. They are usually set up for scale and to kind of you know, compete in big markets with other big CPGs. And now you have all these speed boats, very nimble, very fast, you know, focus on on attacking niche markets, and they are kind of you know a little by little dominated big space, you know, dominated by by the

big cpigs. As the pass and the way you know, the intelligence figured out on how to re prevent, you know, an attack like at is actually to also have speed boats in the big carrier, you know, and deploy speed boats as they were being attacked. That then you could count on the backup and all the intelligence that it would have from the big carrier. But then you kind of you know, have a more a more even fight and that's a little bit more what we are kind

of we're trying to do. You know, I think if our company really believes that with the big number but limited number of brew masses that we have every queen create you know, more beers and and better beer than the thousands and thousands and thousands of craft brewers and blo masses that are all over the world today, I think they will be naive, you know. So what we

are trying to do is basically to join forces. You know, there are a lot of people there that are passionate about beers and about beverages or about technologies to help beverages and beer, and then you know, what we're trying to do is to provide a platform that they could be a much more successful, you know, in their attempts and and and kind of trying to do something that works for both you know, us and and for other startups. So asymmetrical warfare and big consumer product groups are like

carriers that that that's quite interesting. Let's talk a little bit about the technology that you're actually considering looking at thinking about how does technology help you track how effective your marketing is and what does it teach you about your customers. You know, we that that are kind of you know, in terms of technology that are too. Two

big things you know that that we're doing. Of course, one is more on the Martek side of things, right, being able to to track your you know, your spend, passion and reagital and measure are ally and optimize and understand consumers, segment the audiences and do all all of that. I think that they know a lot of people are trying to do. But the other thing that we are

we're also doing. It's too have more direct relationship, you know, with our consumers to really be able to measure you know, full funnel right from people getting to know your brain all the way to making a final final purchase. And we have businesses for example, in in in Latin America now in a lot of countries in Latin America that it can basically have your beier delivered you know, to your home and and tell me and it's like you would have you know, Amazon time in the in the US.

So you know, that's kind of you know, a dual dual approach. One approaches you know, the technology in terms of marketing technology and how to how to measure and how to track things better. But the other one is how do you create technology special earn e commerce where you have you know, better data and better measurement by having a direct relationship with consumers. Quite interesting, consumer preferences seem to change so rapidly in spirits and beer, I mean,

heart Seltzer. I don't even know if this existed ten years ago and then suddenly boom, it's everywhere. How do you use tech and big data to track what are the new trends that are bubbling up? How could you tell the difference between something that's a serious change in consumer habits or what is just a fad that's gonna

very rapidly go away. Yeah, I think seeing the things that are picking up, you know, it's relatively it's relatively easier, right to be with the grand Larry data that you have in social listening, in Google trends and all that. I think it's kind of, you know, easier to understand

what's popping up and what's going on. I think the real question is the one that you ask, right, what are the things that you should really investigate and understand the drivers because they seem to be more long term, long term things, and what are the fads, and I think you know, in our experience that are two factors that have been you know, that have been separating the stats from the from the things that are real. You know. One of them is how this new product is really

aligned with long term trends. Right. So to give you an example, you know, in the US, for example, for the past few years, we had a lot of new flavors and you know, hard soda or you know not your father's roots here and things like that that were in terms of health and wellness, they were almost anti trend, you know, because of the pointity of sugar and calories and and and all that. You know, and now you

have heart cells. So we actually provides the flavor, provides a variety, but it's pretty much aligned with you know, a very strong long term trend in terms of health and wellness. You know. So that's kind of you know, one indicator of the things that are more sustainable than

than than fat. And then the second one is is the kind of the consumer that you see adopting you know, these new these new products, you know, whenever it's just you know, now for consumer in the East and West coast, you know that it's kind of they they try everything, and you know they you know, everything new that they go there and try. Then it's it's hard, you know to establish on others there's simply more sutainable or it's

uh or it's you know, it's sad. But when you see consumers that are more mainstream, you know, consumers mass consumers that there's start adopting, then you you have a heart. You have a huge indicator that the trend is more is more sustainable, and also that that's kind of you know, the two things that are being observing that make a difference.

One of the things I once heard you say that fascinated me was beer created civilization discuss Yeah, it was actually not need Those are the archaeologists and you know that you know a lot of scientific evidence about that. But the story is, you know, beer exists for more than ten thousand years, and you know, before before that period, you know, humans were basically you know, no mats, right, they will hunter, they will hunt, and they will gather, and they will move from place to place as the

resources become more scarce. And then and then a lot of academics were trying to explain why human being settled in communities you know, in the first place, and until the nineties fifties, you know, the main theory was that they start settling communities to plant, grow and stow wheats, you know, to make bread and and and that's why

they you know, they start fawnning. But since the fifties, there is a lot of evidence that the most you know, the most ancient grains that they are finding in this very the settlement was was body, I know, was not was our weak and I don't know if you try to make a bread out of out of body, but it kind of doesn't work out, you know, so who apparently apparently the first you know, the grains that they found or it was body and it was basically two

you know, to make beer. Right, So again, you know, I think beer, you know, the beer that that the rule that beer has been playing you know, in society for the last ten thousand years. It's truly to bring people together. It's an interesting to see it. You know that there is some evidence that it's been doing that for more than ten thousand years. Beer civilized people. I like that. I like that concept. So let's talk about an old joke and advertising, which is half of advertising

dollars are wasted. The problem is we don't know which half. So that raises the question, how do you measure the impact of things like brands and influence and commercials. How do you recognize what actually works and what doesn't. What's

the process like for that? Yeah, I think I think that that phrase I mean, of course, I mean it's not not perfect, but this phrase was very very true probably ten fifteen years ago, where digital and digital market is not so prevalent, where you had basically, you know, mass communication very hard for you to you know, to

relay the mass communication. Today, you know, in a lot of places, we have operations that you can link every single dollar that you spent on advertising, you know, for the people clicking on your advertising being led to one of all the commers platforms, you know, purchasing the product and coming back. So in a way you can calculate very well what you know, the consumer lifetime value is and how much money you spend to acquire you know

that that that customer. Right, So the things have become again, you know, with the commers and with technology marketing technology became much better and and I think the other thing is you know today, uh, you know, back in the days, you will kind of spend the money and then you'll you'll try to look back and use some econometric modeling and and marketing mixed modeling to show another that I

think worked or not. Today we are we are working much more in terms of you know, you have a high parts and you have you know, some variations of creative lines and campaigns that you want to test, and then you put that in digital and then you keep running them and seeing on a daily basis what's working and what's not to be tasting and and putting money

behind the ones that do work, you know. So I really believe that productivity, you know, and the returns have improved substantially, you know, for the companies that are being able to deploy you know, marketing technology and analytics. So digital certainly is helping. How do you how do you look at things like social What what do you think of places like Facebook and Twitter? Is it a marketer's paradise because it's so specific and can get so granular or do you run into the same issues that you

run into advertising anywhere? Yeah, it's you know, these platforms they allow you to understand your audience and provide a message that it's much more adequate to the to the audience that you're trying to reach. Right. So back again, back in the days, you know, you would have to do a kind of a TV campaign, and the TV campaign is for everybody. So you you would pick some some passion points or some sponsorships, and then you would you would kind of blast that sponsorship to the to

the whole population through through TV. You know. Today, what these platforms they allow you to do is to understand you know, consumer segmentation, the interests of people you know, and and and how many of them are there, and the engagement which one of the passion points, and then it allows you to you know, to basically communicate with them through passion points. Right. So, for example, inverter Wiser, you know, we have a lot of sponsorships. You know,

we we sponsor music, sponsor sports. You know, we we have kind of responsor urban culture, responsor arts, uh, you know, and and uh and a bunch of other things. You know, back in the days, will kind of pick you know, one passion point like football for example, and you communicate through that platform and that sponsorship to the whole population.

And what this platform is really allow you to do is to understand specific passion points and then what resonates through rich consumer segment and be much more surgical value or messaging. So you guys own three of my favorite beers. You own Stella, you own Whole Garden, you own Shock Top.

When you're thinking about marketing a particular brands or a premium beer versus a sort of mainstream beer or a microbrew, is it all about just micro targeting that specific passion to a group or is there a broader, more holistic

branding approach somewhere in the background. No, there is a you know, we we kind of you know, we have kind of our our process and on how to build the brands and the brands they are at different stages in different markets, so there's a very you know, specific approach to to give you, like, you know, an example, Scala is of course at at a much different stage than than who got in or or Shocked Top right.

And you know, whenever, whenever we start, you know, in a country with a new brand, we we focus mainly on creating salients for brand and people getting to know that brand and creating points of difference you know, to other beers, so that we entype the career ositive of people to consume the beer. You know. As the brand grows, then we focus more on on relevance and meaning, you know, what what does this brand do for you know, for our consumers, and how it can create more of an

emotional connection you know, over time. Right, So, so there is you know, there is a different approach of course, depending on the on the size of the brand and at the stage that it is. That's really interesting. You guys have been very active in the mergers and acquisition space. You seem to be adding products or at least pre pandemic, you were adding products to your portfolio on a regular basis. When a new brand comes in, how do you go

about marketing that? Do you do? You have to come up with a whole new strategy for each new acquisition to take us through that process. Well, it depends a little bit. So first first and foremost, very we started with with the consumer you know, and we try to map out in in every market what's kind of the total addressable you know, population that we have, and then we try to segment them and try to define what brand and what beer styles or beverage styles are ideal

to you know, address the needs of these consumers. Right, so even sometimes we even call this kind of a programmatic in an a approach because we start from the consumer lenses and then we go backwards and we define what the perfect portfolio that we need in order to

you know, to to serve that that consumer. And then the answer you know, kind of how to do the market and help to integrate the market depends a lot on the on the type of consumer we are trying to to reach, right So, to give an example into thousand sixteen, we partner up with Candem Town Brewery, you know in London, the you know, the most loved and precedious craft beer uh you know in in the UK today and and their consumers you know, they are they

are people with a high level of engagement, you know, with with the brewery, with the neighborhood, with the community

and with beer. So we did very little advertising, and you know, one of our main tools you know for promoting the beer was basically the events get to have on a weekly basis in the brewery and then the group of that that we had, you know, that's kind of of course, it's like super different from the way we launched a but like Felter right, which is again, you know a lot of people are passionate about bud light, but now we are providing them with the bud light

UH that confused different needs in different occasions and the one that they're used to, you know. So again, I think the important thing here always is to start from you know, from the consumer backwards and then define what brands you need to create or partner up with, and then what are the best channels and ways to communicate with them. Quite interesting, Let me ask you a question about the company culture. A ban in BEV has a

reputation of being both challenging but breeding talent. And as an example, your predecessor as chief marketing officer is now the CEO of food Giant craft Higns. What does this say about the corporate culture and what does it mean as to where where you may end up running a company at some point in the future. You know, we have a culture very that is very is very entrepreneurial, you know, and and and for me it's hard to say that because I've been working here for twenty years.

That was my first and only job. But I realized that when we set up UH as the ex Rangers you know, back in two thousands fifteen, because at the time we're trying to hire a lot of entrepreneurial talent to run new ventures and and run new ideas, and we had a big discussion on on where that we should have in the ex ventures the same culture that we had in our in our main company, or you know, we should try to do something different and talking you know,

two people that we brought from the outside and you know, when they looked at our culture and erstand our culture, they say, this is entrepreneurial culture. You know, that's like, that's exactly what entrepreneurs are. They look for. So the main the main things that have in our culture and are about you know, dreaming big, right. We like people, you know that come here with big dreams and want to accomplish big things and want to have you know,

a big impact. We love people that they like meritocracy, you know, which is the possibility of of growing profession and nationally at the base of the of your effort and talent. And we like to bring people that have a sense of ownership, you know that they treat the business of their own business and they have the autonomy, you know, like if they have their their own business, you know, so that those are the main things in the you know that are had in the in the culture.

Easy acts of people that we brought to the company. They were external entrepreneurial talent. And our turnover is super low, you know, so which means that I think there is a fit between you know, the entrepreneurial culture and our culture. What what about pressure? Do you feel the situation when your predecessor is running leaves to run a giant company.

Does that does that add anything to the expectations for what Pedro Earth is going to end up doing at a b in bev there you know again, you know, going going back to the to the culture, you know that the pressure that we're having here is because we want to accomplish more, you know, as a team and as owners. You know, it's not a pressure that comes, you know, because the border wants us to do something or deliver something. On the CEO wants to do something

and deliver something. You know, we see ourselves and again I've been here for you know, for for twenty years, since this company here you know, was a small company you know, back back in Brazil, and we've been behaving you know, the same. We see ourselves as you know, a group of people that want to, you know, to to accomplish things and are ready to you know, to to work as owners in order to in order to

do that. So the pressure for me is much more, you know, given by by our our ambitions and what we want to get accomplished, rather than by an external force. Huh. Quite fascinating. I know I only have you for a couple of more minutes. So let's jump to our favorite questions that we ask all of our starting with what are you streaming these days? Tell us your favorite Netflix or Amazon Prime show or any podcast that you're listening to.

All right, so you know, I Netflix, I haven't been watching too much Netflix lately, and all the last the last one that I saw and I even missed. I think the last episode was the last Dance, you know, which is of course I'm fascinating. And but podcast I you know, I I listened a lot. I mean, I listened to the Bloomberg one. I listened, you know, you know, the CMO pod podcast is really great, the Skat Galloway

prof Ga It's really good. Uh, you know, I I try to exercise, you know, every morning and for me, that's the ideal format in order to learn something get you know, getting formed while while trying to keep healthy. Huh. Tell us about some of your mentors who helped shape your career in the world of marketing. Yeah, you know, very kind of in the I mean when when I joined the company, the company was kind of in a crazy rhythm, right because we are growing a lot and

expanding and doing a lot of things. So in a way, uh, you know, our training and our mentorship came more on a on a day to day basis, you know, and and facing the challenges that we that we staged, rather than proper kind of mentorship, you know, for someone that I would have like deep conversations and and get some some learnings from. Of course, I'm into my you know, my you know, before joining the company, of course, I mean my parents in terms of work, cathotics and fatties,

they were you know, they were fundamental, you know. But after that, if you know, in terms of kind of learning you know, from the outside world. I'm a big fan of reading, you know, I think that the beauty of reading is that, you know, you can try to the extent possible learn with other people's mistakes. Is that with your own mistakes. So I've been you know, I've been really quite a lot since uh, you know, since I left a Quality So let's jump right into that question.

This is everybody's favorite question because people are always looking for new things to read. Tell us some of your favorite books and tell us what you've been reading during the past six months. Yeah. So, you know, I'm reading about mainly mainly two things, right. One thing is about innovation and agility and things like that, you know, because again that's that's kind of coul we need to do to grow and up leading about leadership, you know, to kind of trying to to get better as a you know,

as a leader. One book that I'm reading right now, Uh, it's from a big consultants called Agile Done Right. You know, there's a lot of people, a lot of he's talking about a gile you know, and and things like that. Uh. And and there are a lot of pit false you know, and the mean and he's basically he's the expert in the practicing in their consulting. So that's a pretty interesting book. I just read it. Know a good friend of mine,

David Kidder, you know, the new Too Big book. You know, he explains a little bit how big companies are great at and taking big things and making them bigger, and how entrepreneurs are great at kind of creating things from zero and making them big, and then how big companies can try to do book at the same time. So this is more on the on the innovation side and then on the on the leadership side. You know, I'm

I'm kind of almost finishing the lights out. She's h you know, the story of g you know, and what has been called happening with the company in Wiston, which is a pretty interesting story. Hm, I can just say the least. So what sort of advice would you if to a recent college grad who was just beginning a

career in either marketing, branding or advertising. Yeah, you know, going back to the books, you know, I'm a big fan of Jim Collins, and Jim College has been you know, close to you know, to our company for a long time and we learn a lot from you know, from him, and he has this principle, you know, and what makes company companies great that I think it applies to people as well. And also he says that companies are outstanding and they last. A companies that first they love what

they do. Second, they have the DNA to do that better than the people in third, kind of you know what they do. You know, it's it's kind of a sustainable economic model. You know, it's something that leads the company to a direction that it's that it's sustainable. You know, if if you use the analogy I think with your you know, your professional life, for your life is you know,

try to to do what you love. You know, check on whether what you love, you know you have the genes or the capabilities to be to be better than than average. And then see if by doing that thing you know you're gonna you're gonna go, you are likely to go to a path that is going to make you a happy person in life. And also that's that's kind of a framework that I think is useful to

think about your career choice. And our final question, what do you know about the world of marketing and advertising today that you wish you knew twenty years ago when you were first getting started. I think, you know, when I started, there was a lot about you know, understanding the the theory behind it, you know, understanding about brand duty, about channel planning, about all the all the theoretical underpinnings

and of marketing and consumer understanding. And you know today today I think, you know, I realized that, you know, it's about having a deep customer obsession and a deep customer understanding you know the rest. If you have that, the rest you can learn, you know, pretty quickly. But having this obsessive you know, mindset on understanding what what your you know, what what are your consumers and what people need and how your products can can achieve that.

I think it's it's a big part of what marketers should do well. You know the rest. I think it's it's easier to to call thank you, Pedro for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Pedro EARP, chief marketing officer at Beer Giant a b in Bev. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out any of the previous three hundred or so we've had over the past six years. You can find that at iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, wherever your finer

podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Give us a review on Apple iTunes. Be sure and check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinions. Sign up for our daily reads at rid Halts dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Halts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the Crack staff that helps us put together these conversations each and every week. Michael Boyle is my producer, Tim Harrow is my audio engineer.

Atika val Brunn is our project manager. Michael bat Nick is our head of research. I'm Barry Ridholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Rady yum