Not Ponies. Not a hobby. Not small. Not a hobby. Not sipped. Not imported. Not a fruit cup. Not following. Not for everyone. Not backing down. These are all titles from Budweiser’s Super bowl ad by Anomaly.
Bud is not shy about asserting its credentials – nor having a dig at the competition. It’s unashamedly neither an imported nor a craft beer. It’s 100% masculine. And it has a leader’s swagger.
The Clydesdales, which are making their 27th SuperBowl ad appearance Super Bowl ads, play a bit role in this year’s spot. This year, they don’t have to share their stage with puppies. Instead, they’re used as symbols of blokey strength.
Bud’s 2015 Super Bowl ad was not universally popular – even though it won awards and triggered a lot of conversations – but going head to head with craft beer is over – “We are not a one-trick pony,” stated Brian Perkins, US vice president for Budweiser. “You don’t want to jump the shark and keep trotting out the same stuff every year…
“…this new approach that we kicked off with Brewed the Hard Way has a much higher correlation to selling beer than anything we’ve tried in the last few years, which is why we are going all-in on that approach.”
Last year’s Super Bowl ad ad differentiated Bud from craft beers by declaring that it is “brewed for drinking, not dissecting,” adding the jibe, “Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale, we’ll be brewing us some golden suds.”
Most of its critics noted that differentiating Bud by slamming craft beer was weird when its parent company had been enthusiastically acquiring craft breweries for the last few years.
This year, Bud is taking hits at a wide range of other beers. Considering that A-B InBev owns Stella Artois as well as a handful of other imported beers, surrounding its obvious dig at imported beers with other examples of what Bud is not, is sensible thinking.
Brewed the Hard Way, Perkins added, has “delivered the best results on the brand we’ve seen in 14 years. So we now have a high level of confidence about this new tone of voice.”
The dominant takeout from the ad is the “bigness” of the brand.
“We don’t accept that big must be inferior, which I think is and has been a prevailing discourse in a lot of categories, not just beer,” Perkins noted. “We are big because we are widely enjoyed. We should be proud of that.”
Budweiser is also running an anti-drink driving ad by Helen Mirren at the Super Bowl.
