Several people sent me a link to ABIB‘s latest ad campaign for Bud Light Lime in a can. You can watch the online commercial below.
I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I’m generally a fan of the double entendre and the wit it often employs, but this Bud Light Lime ad seems less witty and more coarse, low-brow and unsophisticated. Klassy with a “K.” And I say that not because of its naked and unsubtle allusions to sex or because — gasp — children might see it. I’m not personally offended in any way. But regardless of what I think about Bud Light Lime, it hardly shows beer in a positive light. It may be the least respectful ad since Miller’s infamous mud wrestling ad or Bud’s recently flatulent horse.
Created by the ad agency DDB Chicago, so far the reaction has been mixed, yet both sides seem to prove my point that this is not the way to portray beer if we want anyone to take it seriously. (And before anyone chimes in with “but it’s just Bud Light,” like all advertising it accumulates to the overall perception of beer by society at large, so I believe it does matter.) On one hand, Advertising Age says In Juvenile Bud Light Lime Spot, This Butt’s for You, finding it too tasteless to be effective. They conclude:
Crude ads are, of course, nothing new in the category that brought the world the “Swedish Bikini Team,” but they’ve been a bit scarce since Miller Brewing Co.’s bottom-scraping use of bikini-clad mudwrestlers in a 2003 “tastes great, less filling” brawl.
That ad sparked wide recriminations about how lowest-common-denominator advertising turns the product into a commodity indistinguishable by any measure other than whose proprietor has lower standards. For a while after, advertisers toned it down, taking a back seat to fast-food chains and even domain registrars when it came to over-the-top ads.
But perhaps our long national nightmare of relatively tasteful beer ads is coming to an end at last.
But BrandFreak’s Kenneth Hein felt that it is the best thing Bud Light’s done in a while,” completely disagreeing with Advertising Age.
The problem with Bud Light and beer advertising in general is that brands are afraid to have fun. Sure, thinly veiled anal-sex jokes appeal to “the lowest common denominator,” but who cares? We’re talking about beer. A-B and its agencies need to have a couple and loosen up even more, because its recent run of ads have been a buzzkill.
But here’s where he proves my point. He likes the ad precisely because it’s tasteless as he writes “who cares? We’re talking about beer.” And that’s the rub. It perpetuates the perception that beer is just beer, nothing more. And that’s the belief a vast majority of people hold, which I think is almost entirely the fault of of ads like this one. Only the breweries that can afford to advertise on television nationally get their message to consumers. And for decades, that message has appealed to a lowest-common denominator ethos that’s painted beer as an interchangeable commodity. Only the brand is important, because for most of those beer companies, what’s inside is virtually the same. So you sell other ideas, and end up with a populace that perceives all beer as being the same. And that overall perception is hardly flattering. So most people tend to believe that beer is all the same; it’s just that swill that frat boys drink at tailgate parties or while binge-drinking their way through college.
And I hardly think this ad will change that. What do you think about it?
the internets word of mouth talk about 21A beer in cans basically came down to how much we’d all come to like it in the can. that’s right, in the can.
I have been in show biz pretty much all of my life, and have appeared in a bunch of commercials. So from a creative viewpoint, this is a great and funny ad, well cast, well played, and very well done over all. Tasteless? Only if one is devoid of a sense of humor or at the very least, a sense of fun.
It’s just too bad that the creativity of this as is wasted on such a crappy product (Then again, plenty of people like this kind of beer, so who’s to say?).
As far as the notion that such an ad sullies the “image” of beer in general, I can only say…”whaaaa…?” __It’s just an ad__, and although I thoroughly agree that all beer is definitely not created equal, it is in the end still ‘just beer’ (or perhaps I should say, just another consumer product vying for customer dollars), and it will appeal to some folks’ sense of humor and repel others.
And that varied reaction would just be an indicator of its success as an effective ad. It’s probably attention getting enough that it may actually attract some new customers.
The micro industry should only be so imaginative and freewheeling as to run an ad like this…I think it suits _their_ image as the “upstarts” of the beer business who are in fact successfully changing the industry landscape. The notion of trying to portray beer as “highbrow” is probably an exercise in futility (in addition to being a bit silly).
I’d rather see Janet Jackson’s nipple. I can’t comment on the taste.
Professor,
Really? I’m devoid of a sense of humor if I don’t find equating beer drinking with anal sex funny? That’s the metric that determines it? Being in the entertainment business I’m sure you can recognize that all humor is not the same. I prefer to have my mind stimulated to make me laugh, not my genitals. Oh, and I hate fun, too. You can’t really be serious that this is universally funny and anyone who doesn’t agree that it’s funny is wrong, can you? Funny is, and never has been, a universal construct. If it were, we wouldn’t need comedians.
I don’t know what you’re a “professor” of, but it’s clearly not advertising. Commercials do create perceptions about the products they advertise. They aren’t “just ads” to the people who create them and the people who pay for them. They do them for a reason. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t do them. Advertising and marketing is more scientific today than at any time in history. Building a brand is very serious work, and if you don’t think that the overall approach to beer advertising over the decades has not been to dumb it down and paint it in a bad light from the point of view of craft beer, then you’d never have come up with the idea “of trying to portray beer as “highbrow” is probably an exercise in futility (in addition to being a bit silly). They’ve certainly convinced you that beer is “just beer.” American wine was once thought of in exactly the same terms. As you admit, beer can be low-brow, obviously, but it’s not the only thing it can be. It can also be “highbrow” and even middle-brow” (or whatever that would be called). But this type of advertising perpetuates and maintains the ignorance that you so amply demonstrate by saying it’s still “just beer” and that it’s “silly” to believe otherwise.
And really, this is what it’s come to in terms of evaluating an ad. The mixed reaction means it’s effective and successful? Controversy equals success? Certainly it can, but it can also backfire, too. Just because people are talking about an ad doesn’t mean it will necessarily increase sales. And that’s the only thing corporations care about in measuring the success of an ad, so just creating controversy is not enough.
The craft beer industry would likely never run such an ad, not because they aren’t imaginative or freewheeling (whatever that means) enough, but precisely because they have more imagination. Craft brewers channel their imagination into creating beers that taste good, are unique and push the limits of what beer is and can be. They don’t have to try to sell an image or a lifestyle like the large beer companies, who rely heavily on their marketing because their products are largely indistinguishable from one another. In the last few years both the President of Miller and A-B have admitted as much in speeches they’ve given.
Craft, on the other hand, can rely on the product itself. Which is good, since they can’t afford to advertise on primetime television. And that’s why this type of ad is so damaging to beer’s perception in the mainstream; because people will remain ignorant so long as this is the only voice they hear.
Good points, well stated.
I do think that my comments were taken a bit too personally, and for that I’m sorry. I was just expressing my own admittedly opinionated take on things, that’s all.
I guess one of the points I was trying to make (albeit in a roundabout way, clumsily trying to play “devil’s advocate”) is that it is seeming to me that the micro-brew or so called “craft” beer movement (of which I have been an ardent fan and supporter of for 30 years or more) appears to be taking itself a bit too seriously lately. We can certainly agree to disagree on how important beer’s general “image” is, what’s funny and what’s not, and even what the definition of “craft” beer is. In the grand scheme of things (as far as beer goes anyway) the most important thing is ‘what’s in the glass’ and whether or not we like it, regardless of who makes it.
Cheers. I’ll buy the next round.
Well, what can an ad-man do? Obviously there is so little to brag about this product that its brand selling message was reduced to, “hey, oh yeah, we got a new package, we got it in the can, now.”
Very sad, and Jay you are 100% correct to say the low-brow message is harmful to the beer industry in general, not to mention the damage being made to some of the very fine craft brewery examples just now beginning to be marketed in aluminum cans. I gotta go to the can now – to gargle.
Honestly? These are the type of jokes that were on Bob and Tom 10 years ago. My problem is that it is not really creative because of that…and it is a little 8th grade-like.
Bud Light Lime…blah…crappy Corona wannabe.
I found the ad funny at low-brow level, but other posters make valid points about its (after) effects. I wouldn’t even think of drinking that stuff unless I was in 100+ heat in a dry climate – in which case slamming a few in rapid succession could replenish the fluids & refresh the palate. I live in Richmond CA, a mile from the Bay – I drink lighter ales when it gets over 80-85.
I drink craft brews & quality imports, w/1 exception: Sam Adams! Jim Koch’s preposterous “I brew the best beer in America” late 90’s/early 00’s TV ads shoulda been hit for “truth in advertising ” violations (all his beer sold in stores is contract-brewed to his recipes)! His latest ads are pretentious & humorless – I change channels/hit “MUTE” button when one comes on.
Stone, Dogfish, Schmaltz (He’brew), Lagunitas, & other craft brews have great (and usually informative) LABELS that are fun to read as you quaff. At least IBAB has kept some humor & good production quality in the Bud ads.