It’s Super Bowl week, and that means pointless media junkets, millions of dollars plunked down on gambling apps, celebrity sightings, and Taylor Swift. Oh, there is also a game Sunday featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and the favored San Francisco 49ers. The game is expected to be the most-watched in NFL history, with the bump from Taylor Swift as legions of curious fans tune in to the game specifically to get glimpses of their hero.
For years, one of the most anticipated parts of Super Bowl Sunday was the commercials. Madison Avenue saved that day for the freshest, funniest ads from the biggest brands and stars. Unfortunately, in recent years, largely because of the political and cultural climate. The game has seen a shift from fresh and funny to dour and preachy. That has led many to tune out, using that time for bathroom breaks and snack runs.
With the advent of social media and online streaming, many companies have chosen to ruin the surprise and get a jump on the competition by releasing their big-budget ads days in advance. While it ruins the anticipation for the big game, it at least gives viewers the opportunity to tune out during the telecast. One big-name brand has already released its new ad with hopes of reviving a legendary brand.
Bud Light, fresh off of the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco that cost parent company InBev billions, Bud Light its top spot on the beer charts, and numerous jobs within the company, released their ad in hopes of sparking a cultural reset and putting the Mulvaney nightmare behind them. Based on early reactions, it may not be money well spent.
Three years ago, Bud Light didn’t even run Super Bowl ads. This year, AbInbev is trotting out the Bud Clydesdales, as well as featuring Peyton Manning, Post Malone, and Dana White of the UFC for a 60-second spot intended to make Bud Light cool again. Of course, it is debatable if the beer was ever cool to begin with, but at least regaining market share could be called a win for the embattled brand.
Kyle Norrington, AB’s chief commercial officer, said: “It’s an important moment. It continues to get tougher as a marketer, but this is an amazing moment. People are seeing 10,000 pieces of communications every day, but Super Bowl’s just different. The world is watching. This is an opportunity for us to lean in and get back to what we’ve been doing since 1975, which is great beer marketing.”
Charles Taylor, a marketing professor at Villanova, summed up Bud Lights’ desperation Super Bowl play: “It’s a crucial moment because enough time has passed that the controversy has died down. I think people are now open to their message in a way that wouldn’t have been the case much of last year. Regardless of one’s political views, Bud Light really got a bad deal out of that. But when they lost market share leadership after all these years, I absolutely think it’s a crucial year to start recovering and turn the consumer’s attention to something else and put that in the past.”
It’s hard to feel sorry for Bud Light. The brand brought this on itself with its ridiculous partnership with Mulvaney and its refusal to say ‘our bad.’ Many folks will never come back to the brand. It simply isn’t good enough to lure many beer drinkers back. Peyton Manning, Post Malone, and Dana White are all likable characters meant to lure middle-class Americans back, but a Super Bowl ad probably isn’t going to do it.
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