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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, January 25, 2007

This Bud's not just for you, it's for the world

By Laura Petrecca and Bruce Horovitz
USA Today

Anheuser-Busch — the biggest Super Bowl advertiser by far — will go slightly less flag-waving and more worldly in its ads this year. It also will give its declining Budweiser brand more air time.

There will be no Anheuser-Busch ads in emotional support of American soldiers or 9/11 victims. This year's ads will mostly have a more humorous and international feel, says Bob Lachky, executive vice president of global industry development.

The Budweiser brand — which has been losing market share domestically for several years — is being re-billed as a "world" beer. As imported beer sales have climbed, Anheuser-Busch has been buying up import brands in recent years. And its Super Bowl ads seem to be doing less flag-waving and more global hugs.

Two Bud spots will end with a logo of the globe behind the familiar Budweiser symbol.

For Anheuser-Busch, it's a new world — of competition.

"We have lots of equity in our traditional American heritage," Lachky says. "But most people don't know that Budweiser is one of the world's most popular beers." In fact, it's second only to Bud Light as the world's best-selling beer.

One ad for Bud appears to take place aboard the international space station, as an American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut celebrate with a Bud that's as weightless as they are.

With this nod to Bud's worldliness, "We're trying to get it back on the radar screen."

There could be no better place to do that than at the Super Bowl, says Jon Bond, co-chairman of ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, which doesn't have any advertisers on this year's game. "The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of drinking occasions. It makes perfect sense for Budweiser to go on there."

In a nod to cultural inclusion, Latino comedian Carlos Mencia, from Comedy Central, stars in a Bud Light spot, teaching an English class how to speak with a Southern drawl when asking for a Bud Light.

Some Anheuser-Busch ads will give an emotional lift to the little guy, including one with the Clydesdales and a lost dog.

But celebs will make a showing, too. In one ad, rapper Jay-Z and football's Don Shula square off in a football-themed chess game. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. stars in an ad where he's being chased in his race car by a gang of Mad Max-type hooligans.

Anheuser-Busch also will expand its Internet — and other new media — presence around the Super Bowl.

It will promote Bud.TV, its new online entertainment network that targets twentysomethings. The Web site kicks off the day after the Super Bowl.

For the first time, the brewer will text-message fans on their cell phones during the Super Bowl, asking them to vote for their favorite Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl ads on their cell phones.