Hey Bud Light: You're doing it wrong.
12/3/2013 post
We now have one answer to the pressing question: "What's wrong with Bud Light's advertising?"
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This week's press brings us what the guy responsible for the brand's advertising thinks is behind its loss of nearly a million barrels of volume in just the past two years. (That's 330 million 12-ounce cans!)
Says Bud Light's marketing VP: "The big issue I saw was that we were making fun of our drinker. Instead of laughing with, we were laughing at (him)." |
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And to solve this, here are two of the ads they've come up with:
(1/23/2014 Editor's note: When this article was written, there were three Bud Light "Hold my beer" commercials on the brand's website. For legal reasons, they have been removed. The ad below was posted by an individual YouTube user, so it's still available.)
(1/23/2014 Editor's note: When this article was written, there were three Bud Light "Hold my beer" commercials on the brand's website. For legal reasons, they have been removed. The ad below was posted by an individual YouTube user, so it's still available.)
Funnier? Yup.
The "big issue" with Bud Light's advertising solved?
Far from it.
Some time back, we published the "Seven Deadly Sins of Beer Advertising." Bud Light advertising is a serial violator of at least five of these. At best, their new "Hold my beer" ads address only one: They stop portraying the brand's drinkers in an unflattering way. (The lay person will be excused if they wonder how highly paid advertising folks missed that in the first place.)
Here's what the new Bud Light ads don't do: They don't accomplish the #1 job of beer advertising, namely making the brand special. This is an issue of brand strategy, not comedy-writing execution.
Bud Light may have created great ads for selling beer, but that #1 job of advertising requires developing a strategy that makes the brand special and distinctive, and so sells a particular brand of beer, Bud Light. These new commercials fail to answer the critical, and much more difficult question for Bud Light's marketing VP: "Why should drinkers choose Bud Light?"
And there's nothing funny about that.
The "big issue" with Bud Light's advertising solved?
Far from it.
Some time back, we published the "Seven Deadly Sins of Beer Advertising." Bud Light advertising is a serial violator of at least five of these. At best, their new "Hold my beer" ads address only one: They stop portraying the brand's drinkers in an unflattering way. (The lay person will be excused if they wonder how highly paid advertising folks missed that in the first place.)
Here's what the new Bud Light ads don't do: They don't accomplish the #1 job of beer advertising, namely making the brand special. This is an issue of brand strategy, not comedy-writing execution.
Bud Light may have created great ads for selling beer, but that #1 job of advertising requires developing a strategy that makes the brand special and distinctive, and so sells a particular brand of beer, Bud Light. These new commercials fail to answer the critical, and much more difficult question for Bud Light's marketing VP: "Why should drinkers choose Bud Light?"
And there's nothing funny about that.
