Hasta La Creative!

Is it time for football again already?? Yes, it is.

That means it’s time for a new W+K campaign promoting Bud Light’s NFL team branded cans.

The launch spot “This Is Your Can’s Year” opens with voiceover courtesy of actor Michael K. Williams (aka Omar Little), who asks,”Will this can repeat? Will this can make it back?” over shots of a hand reaching into a cooler full of ice to pull out a Bud Light can with the Broncos logo on it and a Carolina Panthers can awaiting a drinker at a tailgating party.

“Or is this your can’s year?” the voiceover adds, as someone opens a fridge full of New England Patriots cans. The spot plays up both the brand’s legacy and the legacy of individual teams with the line “You root for this can, your father roots for this can, your father’s father rooted for this can.”

“This Is Your Can’s Year” also manages to work in cameos from former NFL stars Bo Jackson, Justin Tuck and Tim Couch. The approach is almost a given for the brand and NFL sponsor, as cans branded with fans favorite teams is an obvious selling point for a beer long associated with football. The spot, directed by Mark Romanek, manages to work in references to a wide variety of teams in ways that speak to either the teams’ recent history or location (a man struggling to open a frozen Buffalo Bills can, for example) and the brisk pacing keeps things from getting boring. It makes its broadcast debut this Thursday during Thursday Night Football. The campaign also includes local OOH executions targeting fans of individual teams. 

“Just like wearing your favorite player’s jersey or team colors is a badge of honor, so is drinking from your Bud Light team can,”  Mark Goldman, senior marketing director, Bud Light, said in a statement. “Our mission with our new film was to pay tribute to the passion fans feel for their team, and capture the optimism that we all feel as NFL fans at the beginning of the season, when it truly can be your team’s year.”

“The game wouldn’t be the same for us players without the fans who put their heart and soul into game day,” added Tuck. “The Bud Light ad honors each and every one of these fans and their passion for the sport.”

That’s cool. We are just glad to report that Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen were nowhere near this spot.

In case you missed it, Bud Light found itself in a bit of hot water yesterday after a reddit post first noted by Consumerist and then covered by every single news organization out there (including The New York Times and, yes, even TODAY) heaped criticism on a single line that appeared on some of its bottles:

“The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night”

Pic via reddit

Of course the company did not in any way mean to encourage sexual misbehavior with this copy, but once the story hit BuzzFeed it was damage control time.

After an initial period of silence, our sister site PRNewser got parent company AB InBev’s communications chief to respond via Twitter:

Bud Light not responding to calls about “remove ‘no’ from your vocabulary” tagline http://t.co/oltWllARAD pic.twitter.com/RfeLRmcVCG

— PRNewser (@PRNewser) April 28, 2015

@PRNewser Nope. We’re responding.

— Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser) April 28, 2015

@Adweek It’s clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior. — Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser) April 28, 2015

This was part of a longer statement issued to various media outlets:

“The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage spontaneous fun. It’s clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.”

For context, the client announced back in February that it planned to run “a variety of messages on 12-ounce bottles to inspire consumers to try new experiences” as part of its ongoing #UpForWhatever campaign. This line was one of those messages.

Initially, we were told that Bud Light’s creative AOR BBDO was not involved because it does not work on packaging for the client. However, AB InBev later released this statement:

“BBDO is the creative agency for this UFW campaign, including all bottle scroll messages. We have an extensive review process and this label should not have made it through. It’s regrettable. This particular scroll will no longer be produced.”

So the client effectively blamed its own internal review process for allowing the message to receive approval but did note that BBDO worked on the creative behind the project.

Recalling all the bottles that feature this particular message will be impossible, and AB InBev is still in damage control mode: it has not been active on social media for the past two days.

Anheuser-Busch beer brand Bud Light is adding a “swipe this” component to its “Whatever, USA” campaign, which from what we gather does not involve BBDO. Instead, the client has gone directly to the swipe-intensive hookup site Tinder to promote their beverage with a cavalcade of celebs including Shaq, Nelly and Diplo.

Following last year’s somewhat controversial launch of Whatever, USA in Butte, Colorado, Bud Light has shifted gears towards the millennial set with this effort that’s aimed at the 21+ market. Speaking to Adweek, Tinder co-founder/president/ultimate bro name Sean Rad says, “We are serious as a company about finding a way for brands to communicate with our users in a very accretive way. We don’t want to disrupt the users’ experience, and we’re committed to that,” he said. “Depending on how this goes, users might see more of this, but it’s going to be a long time until this is a consistent part of your experience.”

As noted, this effort marks Tinder’s first video ad campaign and in conjunction with Bud Light, the latter will select approximately 1,000 users to attend this year’s party, which is scheduled for the last week in May. We’re guessing Butte won’t be the ideal locale, but in the meantime, feel free to download the Twitter app here.

Bud Light has released the full 90-second version of EnergyBBDO’s “Coin” Super Bowl spot, the latest in the brand’s “Up for Whatever” campaign.

Anheuser-Busch first unveiled the ad on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon last night and uploaded the spot to YouTube, where it has received almost 150,000 views. The 90-second “Coin” doesn’t exactly offer up any surprises, as it’s basically what was promised by the teaser: a guy playing a real-life game of Pac-Man. “Coin” coasts along on that rather fun idea, opening on a man in a bar being asked if he’s “up for whatever” and then following the instructions on his Bud Light to “step outside for some old-school fun.” While the setup seems like it could have been handled more quickly (cutting down on the ad’s length a bit), the actual game itself is pretty entertaining.

The ad will air during the fourth quarter of the game, one of three ads A-B InBev will air during the Super Bowl, along with two for Budweiser (including a follow-up to last year’s popular “Puppy Love”).

Waka waka waka.

Bud Light on Friday released the 15-second teaser below for its upcoming 60-second Super Bowl commercial, in which—as promised—a man accepts a challenge to play a crazy, life-size game of Pac-Man.

As seen in the teaser, the dare is written on the label of his Bud Light bottle. That ties into a new Anheuser-Busch packaging campaign that began in December, in which Bud Light bottles now come with almost 50 different “Up For Whatever” messages to inspire drinkers to be more spontaneous and fun.

In the full 60-second Super Bowl spot, titled “Coin,” from EnergyBBDO, the man follows the hint on his bottle and “finds himself in a giant Pac-Man maze, having the time of his life,” says the brand.

The work builds on Bud Light’s buzzy 2014 Super Bowl campaign “Epic Night,” which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Don Cheadle and took the brand away from its usual scripted jokes and into dynamic real-life stunts. This year’s campaign will be supported by a three-day House of Whatever event in Arizona, near the site of the Super Bowl.

In addition to the Bud Light spot, A-B plans to air two 60-second Budweiser ads (one of them a sequel to last year’s chart-topping “Puppy Love”) on the Feb. 1 Super Bowl telecast.

Every giant viral ad needs a parody (or a few dozen), and so Bud Light is here with a spoof of the American Greetings "World's Toughest Job" video—celebrating dads instead of moms.

The joke writing is a little odd—it's caught between wanting to honor dads and wanting to make fun of them, and doesn't really accomplish either one very well.

The gold standard for this kind of parody was the spoof of Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" where the guys suffer from excess self-esteem rather than the lack of it. That came from a comedy group, though, not from a brand with a vested interest in not making guys look too buffoon-like.

Em se tratando de comerciais do Super Bowl, tudo é possível. No caso da Bud Light, isso inclui uma encenação registrada ao longo de uma noite, por 58 câmeras escondidas, 412 atores, 5 estrelas da música, quatro celebridades – o que inclui Arnold Schwarzenegger, Don Cheadle e Reggie Watts – e um cara que não suspeita da noite inesquecível que está prestes a vivenciar em Whatever is Coming.

Criado pela BBDO, o filme conta com alguns teasers que dão uma ideia do que vem por aí.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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According to Bud Light’s (from DDB Chicago) newest commercials, one word says it all – Dude. While the spots themselves are hysterical and can pretty much guarantee a laugh out of anyone, it’s the new website that really brings it all together – dudemadness.com. Here you can not only test your “dudeness” by clicking on the poster your prefer, dude, but you can also send coded dude messages to your friends (which will be decoded via text message). And in case anyone out there was wondering, I happen to be 68% Righteous Dude, 17% Game-On Dude and 15% Redneck Dude (where did THAT come from?!?).

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