AB InBev
sites launched
to launch
Highlights
AB InBev brand Labatt realized that it needed to build 12 individual brand websites in three months.
In addition to the tight timeline, each brand had its own individual stakeholders, complicating communication.
Acquia Site Factory
AB InBev ultimately launched all 12 sites on time, positioning the company to take advantage of the peak summer season.
The Client
Based in Belgium, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev) is a worldwide drink and brewing company. The company owns approximately 630 beer brands in 150 countries — including Canada’s largest brewery, Labatt Brewing Company.
The Situation
Labatt realized that to meet its company’s marketing needs, it needed to effectively “rescue” 12 of the company's brands, building 12 individual websites in a mere three months — before Canada’s summer peak in early July 2020.
The Challenge
Building multiple websites in a short time frame came with a number of challenges:
- More than 20 professionals were developing modules separately — modules that needed to ultimately work together, creating management concerns.
- Each of the 12 brands had individual stakeholders, complicating communication.
- The new sites would need to go through the company’s design vendor, who was responsible for creating and approving the layouts.
The Solution
AB InBev tapped digital partner Dexa to help reach its goals. Dexa immediately started developing in a multisite environment of Acquia Cloud. After mapping the standard features that each site needed, Dexa used the Hoegaarden site — developed and published in only 15 days — as a base to create a Drupal component library. Developing it in this way ensured that when the teams updated a master library component, it would be automatically updated on all brand sites.
To streamline the process and meet the deadline, Dexa implemented brief daily meetings where all developers explained what they had done the day before, what would be done that day and any impediments or difficulties in moving forward with the project. These quick meetings empowered communication; even though each developer was responsible for a specific task, everyone was aware of the component library codes as a whole. This allowed the team to share findings, provide insights on technical difficulties and easily determine materials needed from AB InBev or its design vendor.
The Results
AB InBev ultimately launched all 12 sites on time, positioning the company to take advantage of the peak summer season.