The world’s largest brewer would like to make a toast—to its own biggest brands.

Anheuser-Busch InBev on Tuesday reported organic volume growth of 0.8% in the first quarter of the year, the first such increase since early 2023. Its beer volume in particular, which excludes AB InBev products like ready-to-drink cocktails, also snapped a lengthy losing streak.

Global Chief Marketing Officer Marcel Marcondes told the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Patrick Coffee that the tentative turnaround owes partly to the company’s greater focus on premium beers and beer alternatives.

AB InBev has also been pivoting toward promoting the 50 most popular names in its 500-strong global brand portfolio and away from snapping up other breweries around the world.

“It is a conscious, intentional change, moving from an inorganic growth algorithm into an organic growth algorithm,” Marcondes said during a long interview with Patrick. Check out the full piece here.

AB InBev this morning was also named marketer of the year for the third time by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which cited the three-year shift in its brand marketing strategy.

I asked Patrick the key question:

So wait, is beer back?

Patrick: You’re gonna love to hear that beer didn’t go anywhere. I never stopped drinking it! But it has declined or stayed flat globally for a decade or so, and the main reason is economic.

Yes, there’s some increased awareness of potential side effects, and yes younger people are drinking more moderately. But on a more basic level people have less disposable income, so they drink less, and when they do drink they’re more likely to do it at home. Even more interesting to me is that the data shows consumption moving on a curve: It increases in emerging markets, and then when average economic status hits a certain point, it declines. So over the past few years, growth in beer consumption in China has countered declines in countries like the U.S.

Also, consumption of spirits and especially wine have actually been dropping faster than beer despite the fact that celebrity consultants have decided everyone needs their own tequila brand.

But to answer your real question, AB InBev cites “premiumization” and “beyond beer” in explaining why they’re confident about growth. That just means they’re selling more non-alcoholic beer and other products like canned cocktails… and the beers they are selling are a little more expensive. Michelob Ultra is marketed as both premium and health-friendly, which doesn’t make it any more appealing to me personally, but AB InBev is just fine with that.

Meanwhile: Diageo, the maker of Johnnie Walker whisky and Guinness beer, said organic net sales in North America fell 9.4% in its latest quarter, primarily driven by a drop in volumes.

“North America remains our biggest challenge, where market conditions are soft and our offer needs to be more competitive,” newly-installed CEO Dave Lewis said. Lewis has noted potential options including tapping the growing popularity of ready-to-drink canned cocktails.

Veteran marketing leader Michael Francis has resurfaced as the new chief customer officer at Gap Inc.’s Old Navy, the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Katie Deighton reports for CMO Today:

Francis, who led Target’s marketing between 2000 and 2011, will oversee Old Navy’s strategy for customer engagement and customer experience. Derek Yarbrough, who was named Old Navy’s interim chief marketing officer just over a year ago, remains at the company with the interim title and will report into the work of Francis, a Gap spokesperson tells me.

Old Navy is in no dire straits. Comparable sales at the retailer rose 3% to $2.3 billion in the three months ended Jan. 31, the fifth consecutive quarter of growth. Designer Zac Posen’s appointment as chief creative officer continues to generate headlines more than two years later.

But the brand’s footprint sprawls across 1,249 stores (Gap, by comparison, has 453). Its assortment spans activewear, clothes for everyone from babies to adults, and, since last fall, beauty products.

The company wants to bring more consistency to its marketing; “brand storytelling” will be a part of Francis’s new job, Gap said.

Francis is also taking on another gig: head of marketing shared services at Gap Inc. There he’ll handle media strategy and execution for the parent company, aiming to improve effectiveness and integration across the company’s portfolio.

After a 26-year-run at Target, Francis was briefly president of JCPenney before joining DreamWorks Animation as chief global brand officer. He went on to work as a marketing consultant, occasionally stepping in as interim chief marketing officer at Walmart.

Speaking of mall brands: Gap and Zara’s presence among the labels worn by stars at the Met Gala signals a power shift in fashion at large, highlighting which companies have the funds to pay for the spotlight right now and which are recalculating.

Fashion labels typically foot the bill for creating the Met’s costly red-carpet looks, but some are scaling back because they can’t afford every major occasion.

Barry Diller said he would “absolutely” buy CNN in an appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday, Cara Lombardo writes.

“I would do it tonight and tomorrow night,” said Diller, chairman of the media conglomerate IAC. “Before they ruin it any further.”

David Ellison’s Paramount agreed to buy CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery in an $81 billion deal earlier this year. Many people, including Diller, expect that Ellison will ultimately merge CNN with CBS’s news operation.

Diller also said that he had looked “very deeply” at a deal for Vox Media, whose assets include New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Journal reported Tuesday that James Murdoch is in talks to buy New York and the podcast business.

IAC for its part is rebranding as People Inc. as part of a strategy to focus on its publishing business, which houses some 40 magazines, and its 26% stake in MGM Resorts, built as Diller sought a business he believed couldn’t be disintermediated by tech.

The future People Inc. has 19 projects underway that “have nothing to do with advertising revenue,” Diller said. One is a sweet tea brand tied to its Southern Living magazine.

Noted: The company intends to own the new efforts, in contrast with the typical publishing playbook of licensing out brands.

More media news: The New York Times was sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over allegations it passed over a white man for promotion in pursuit of what the agency called unlawful corporate diversity policies.

The Times said it “categorically rejects the politically motivated allegations brought by the Trump administration’s EEOC.”

The EEOC this year also sued a Coca-Cola distributor that hosted a two-day networking event for women and is investigating whether Nike discriminated against white workers.

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