Bud Light's 2016 ads: Hope or hokum?

The hope of distinctiveness

Last week, a Beer Business Daily article proclaimed "It's make or break for Bud Light." By way of on an interview with the brand's top marketer, the editor and publisher of the highly respected industry newsletter uncovered insight into what lies ahead in the ads for America's #1 beer. 

Well, this is certainly a hopeful bit of news, at least for those wanting to see Bud Light sales return to growth. It tells us the A-B folks have embraced important learning from their two recent successful ad campaigns, and plan to incorporate this strategic insight on Bud Light. So, what'd they learn? 

Most important of all, both these A-B brands wholeheartedly focused on their distinctiveness; how they're different, and implicitly, better than competing beers. A focus on "the liquid."

Hard facts were marshaled to support the key differentiating aspects of each brand.

Low carbs and 95 calories make Michelob "the superior light beer" for active, healthy people.

Budweiser's "Brewed the Hard Way" ads celebrate facts as well: the litany of ingredients, aging, and the brewing ethic that make the beer unique. The counterpoint to the fussiness of so many craft beers added a powerful competitive edge for the proudly macro beer.

In both cases, the ads dramatized what the brewer thought were the key aspects of product distinctiveness, those bits of information that could attract new customers, and keep the ones they had. 

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In neither case were the ads hard to watch, but they also weren't what you'd call entertainment, either. They were about selling Bud and Mich Ultra as beers different from their competition.

But lest we get too optimistic that the same proven-successful focus is coming soon on Bud Light...

The hokum of humor 

Elsewhere in the interview...

"How, exactly has 'humor' built Bud Light?" you might ask. When did you last buy something just because an ad made you laugh? If "funny" built beer brands, Old Milwaukee would be on top of the world. Heck, some of the funniest beer ads ever came in the form of talking frogs, lizards and the "Wassssup?" guys for Budweiser, all of which only saw the brand's sales keep sliding. 

And while we're wondering about humor building any brand, here comes a peculiar misunderstanding of the fundamental purpose of advertising, from the mouth of the guy who's charged with deciding how to spend Bud Light's advertising millions...

Memo to the boss: The purpose of beer advertising is not "to entertain." The purpose of beer advertising is to "sell beer." The many recent high-profile Bud Light ads offering entertainment superstars, over-the-top outdoor entertainment, and even whole cities devoted to crowd entertainment saw Bud Light's sales fall. Why? Because humor and entertainment by themselves are little more than fluff. They're empty fun. Good for a laugh, maybe, but without real substance. Because unlike Michelob Ultra and Budweiser's product distinctiveness, there's just nothing to motivate purchase. No selling = no buying.

We're not sure what the "significant(ly) higher amount of meaning" is. It sounds like gobbledygook. Mushy, unfocused, unspecific ad-speak, rather than a clear, carefully vetted selling message. Perhaps we're too cynical, but it also sounds like the sort of nonsense some clever ad-agency guys conjured up to justify making funny, but empty, ads. The kind so many ad guys value so highly.

But there's no way Bud Light would fall for that... again. 

Is there?

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