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Run-up to SuperBowl 50: Will Anheuser-Busch improve on its record from last year?

1/16/2016

 
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Over the past few years, our contemporaneous reviews of Anheuser-Busch's SuperBowl commercials have proven to be--if we do say so ourselves--pretty darned spot-on.
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Let's go to the record...

• Last year, we panned Bud Light's 60-second ad as "faux fun." We said this all-too-common practice in beer advertising inevitably leads to "a distinct lack of distinctiveness." In a separate article, we explored how this sort of entertainment masquerading as advertising comes about. How ad agencies like to create ads that get themselves noticed, even if they do nothing to sell beer. Now, Bud Light's badly flawed "up for whatever" ads are gone, along with the ad agency that created them.

• Just a year earlier, we said the recurring Budweiser "puppy" ads airing over the years were just not effective advertising, and we showed the research to prove it. While the King of Beers aired one more canine commercial in the 2015 big game, it looks like that's the end of the litter. There will be no puppy this year.

• And last but not least, we were among the first to proclaim Budweiser's "Brewed the Hard Way" ad debuting in SuperBowl 49, a hit for the brand. The same night it aired, we banner-headlined: EXTRA!! Budweiser runs a real beer ad! In a followup article (Budweiser's got game!) we looked at how the brand got to work ramping up its efforts behind this winner of a campaign.

A-B's SuperBowl 50 lineup

The latest word is that Anheuser-Busch will place ads in this year's game for four of its brands: Budweiser, Bud Light, Shock-Top and Michelob Ultra. It's a pretty good bet the Michelob ad will continue the brand's successful fitness/low-carb strategy (
one we called a winner way back in 2013, in case you're still keeping score). And we'd be surprised if Budweiser departs from its "Brewed the Hard Way" strategic effort.
​
So, that leaves Bud Light and Shock-Top as the two question marks.
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Anheuser-Busch's "front four" for SuperBowl50
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The recently announced changes in the Bud Light package design suggest the brand may finally focus on a product-distinctiveness strategy in place of "faux fun." Then again, there's also been chatter about celebrities and humor in the ads which can sometimes get in the way of a product story. Pay attention to what they actually say about the beer, beyond simply repeating its name. 

​Because Shock-Top is relatively new to television ads, it's hard to predict its direction. However, with virtually every craft brand selling itself on the distinctiveness of its beer, we'd expect Shock-Top to take heed, and give beer drinkers an idea of how its beers are different.

Grab your favorite beer and get ready!

If you enjoy rating SuperBowl beer ads as much as we do, you may want to see how we go about distinguishing the winners from the losers. Here's a useful guide: How to make an ad as effective as Budweiser's.

Or try our even simpler two-item checklist.

​Either way, February 7th will be all about football and beer... ads. 


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Heineken insults drinkers, using whiny women to sell less beer; Maybe a LOT less

1/13/2016

 
Think we're kidding?

​Take a look at Heineken's latest worldwide ad...
Beautiful, dressed-to-the-nines women musically dissing their way past one implicitly over-served guy after another. The out-to-party-all-night, diversity-rich ladies are "looking for a hero" to replace these rumpled, decidedly un-diverse, beery jamokes.

We've rarely seen an ad so flagrantly violate the first of our Seven Deadly Sins of Beer Advertising. In the top spot on that list is "portraying the brand's drinkers in an unflattering way." It seems obvious enough: Don't insult your best prospects.

Adding injury to insult

But if the portrayal of Heineken's primary target as a bunch of short-hitting loser-dudes isn't enough, why not drive home their deeper, more consequential failure as men?

Most young-adult guys harbor some level of insecurity about how to succeed with women. (Take our word for it. Or search the internet and you'll find plenty of material.) Parading one attractive woman after another, all lamenting the absence of a "hero" to deliver their desired romantic end to the evening, ought to push a guy's sexual pucker-factor to "11."

So the girls all sing...

In a night of tossing and turning, I dream of what I need
I'm holding on for a hero to the end of the night
I need a hero
(Over video of phallic subway train at speed) 
I'm holding on for a hero to the morning light.

How about a side-order of performance anxiety with your beer, sir?

No thanks

We get that this is meant to be a "responsible consumption" ad. But if the route to responsible drinking is male-bashing and anxiety-inducing drama, consumption could go very soft indeed. The one guy at the end of the ad who refuses an offered Heineken may be joined by hordes of others.

In its press release, Heineken said they thought this ad would "empower (women) to encourage men to moderate their drinking." Just what every guy wants to hear, right?

And people wonder why so much beer advertising celebrates male-bonding.
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Ah, the absence of performance anxiety!

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    The Author

    Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

    For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

    Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

    If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

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