16503: What’s Going On & Whassup?

 

MEL originally published the article below in January 2019, spotlighting “The Untold History of the ‘Whassup?’ Super Bowl Commercial”—which is arguably an example of cultural appropriation. Brought to you by White advertising agency DDB and AB InBev, self-proclaimed purveyors of pop culture and DEIBA+ defenders.

 

The Untold History of the ‘Whassup?’ Super Bowl Commercial

 

How a grainy VHS tape became one of the most famous ads of all time — and went viral before viral was even a thing.

 

By Quinn Myers

 

Vinny Warren knew he’d struck gold in 1999 when a friend showed him a “super-grainy and degraded” VHS video of guys screaming “WHAAASSSSUP!?” at each other over the phone. At 32, the Irish-born creative director at Chicago-based ad agency DDB was still young enough “to be in touch with that youthful party spirit,” he says, and he thought the short was brilliant — even though it had “no discernible joke.” There was something “irresistible” about it, he tells MEL more than 19 years later. “It was really funny. To me, anyway.”

 

And then Warren had an idea: What if the guys were holding Budweisers?

 

The rest is history. The ad, titled “Whassup?,” debuted on Monday Night Football in December 1999 and aired during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. It won countless advertising awards, including a Cannes Grand Prix, and entered the pantheon of iconic American ads — becoming arguably one of the most well known Super Bowl commercials in history.

 

But what of its humble beginnings? How did an ad go viral before going viral was even a thing?

 

It’s a myth, Warren says, that he discovered the film at a short film festival. But what most people don’t know is that it was a short film to begin with. The original, titled TRUE, was written and directed by Charles Stone III. It was never intended to be an early viral advertising sensation. Instead, it was Stone’s “calling card,” Warren says, to “prove to Hollywood he could tell a story.”

 

In 1999, Charles Stone III was an up-and-coming director, trying to make his name in the business. “He’d mostly shot rap/music videos until then, which were a little light on story,” Warren tells MEL. “So he made a film on the cheap that used his friends doing what they’d done: bullshitting on the phone about nothing.”

 

Stone and his friends were from Philadelphia, Warren explains, but they shot the entire film in an apartment in New York City.

 

“The film was basically an editorial joke,” Warren says. “Nothing overtly funny actually happens in the film, but the way their shouts of ‘Whassup!’ built to an irresistible crescendo was very funny.” Stone entered TRUE into “all the short-film festivals,” and it was well received, Warren says. (Stone didn’t return our requests for comment.)

 

Industry insiders began to pass around a VHS of the film, and eventually, “an ad agency producer pal showed me a VHS copy of a copy of the film,” Warren says. “It was super-grainy and degraded.”

 

But the magic was there. “This was the same tape we played to the Budweiser clients,” Warren says.

 

“My immediate thought was that it was hilarious and fresh,” Warren adds. His advertising instincts kicked in: “Because I worked on the Budweiser brand, my creative antenna was always on the alert for ideas that could work for the brand,” he says. And once he noticed the guys in the film were watching an NFL game, “it was easy for me to see Buds in their hands.”

 

Warren got more excited for the film’s potential when he saw the effect it had on anyone who watched it. “I simply couldn’t stop showing it to other (white) advertising people, and they all had the same reaction: Every time we would meet, we would shout ‘Whassup!’ at each other and laugh. We couldn’t not do it. It was just irresistible on some level. I kind of knew that if we did it right, everyone in America would be shouting ‘Whassup!’ I had tested that out in a microcosm on my pals and co-workers. And nobody was immune.”

 

Warren decided he needed to pitch this to the Anheuser-Busch executives, who happened to be in town for one night in October 1999.

“Two pages of a document we sent to the client before we shot the ads,” Warren says. “Gives you some idea of the inside of how this stuff happens. We were pretty accurate in our hopeful predictions. Thank God!”

 

The Pitch

 

The pitch for “Whassup?” — a commercial that would end up in CLIO Awards Hall of Fame — happened in a hotel bar.

 

“August Busch IV was in Chicago for a night,” Warren explains. It was October 1999, and Warren and the DDB team were throwing around ideas for Super Bowl 2000 ideas.

 

“We showed him the video of the TRUE film, and he liked it,” Warren says. But to Busch, it was “just another promising idea fighting for attention and funding.” Warren explains that Budweiser and Bud Light, by this point, had an established history of putting together very popular Super Bowl ads. “They had a standing order of five minutes of airtime in the game,” he says. “That’s potentially 10 30-second ads for all their brands. Every year. So they overproduced ideas for the Super Bowl.”

 

In other words, Busch enjoyed the grainy, degraded VHS, but it didn’t stand out from the rest of the ideas pitched. It did have one special thing going for it, though: “Luckily for us, our idea was relatively cheap to shoot compared to some of the more cinematically epic ideas,” Warren says.

 

Anheuser-Busch gave DDB the go-ahead.

 

Warren felt confident it would resonate. “I had already delivered a couple of biggish-hit ads for them, I knew the brands and I knew the Anheuser-Busch corporate culture. It felt right for Budweiser because of the situation: friends watching sports on TV and bullshitting. And it was just cathartic and fun to shout ‘Whassup!’ to your pals when you’d had a few beers.”

 

But there was one problem. “Funny side note: We had already sold the idea to the client before we contacted Charles to tell him,” Warren admits. “Bear in mind, this was late 1999. Not everything was online yet. I actually had to track Charles down and tell him the news and persuade him that we wouldn’t fuck it up.”

 

Filming the Redux

 

Just as the original film TRUE was shot in New York City, so too was the Budweiser ad — they even used the same cast (with the exception of Dookie), and contracted Stone to direct. “We just recreated it with more money and better equipment,” Warren says.

 

But also, they shot it with “a different intent.” If the purpose of the original was to portray the way guys used to chat on the phone about nothing, what was the new intent? To sell beer, of course. “I added the response, ‘Watching the game, havin’ a Bud,’ to our adaptation of the film,” Warren says. “Which felt about right. Budweiser has a unique place in the culture, much like Guinness does in Ireland. Bud equals beer here.”

 

The actual filming of the ad, Warren says, was easy: “It was very simple to recreate because it was so simply shot… [it] was a series of locked-off shots of people shouting ‘Whassup!’ at each other over the phone, it was very simple to recreate because it was so simply shot, and that’s why it was so easy to parody too.”

 

The Super Bowl

 

The film was recreated to perfection with the addition to a few subtle nods to Budweiser. Now, Warren and his team waited to see how it tested. “The way the Super Bowl worked for us was that we would produce 30 to 40 ads for all the Anheuser-Busch brands before the game,” he says. “And the client would test the fully produced and edited TV ads for ‘likability,’ i.e., which was the funniest, and select the the highest-scoring ads to air in the game.”

 

Three months after the original pitch, Warren says the top 10 “most broadly appealing and funny ideas” would be picked to air during the Super Bowl. “So getting your ad in that set was crucial,” he explains. “And because A-B always had the very first commercial spot within the game (the so-called ‘1A’ spot), the spot that tested the best automatically aired during that coveted 1A slot.”

 

To his relief, “Whassup?” was one of the 10 picked, but didn’t get the 1A slot. Though he eventually landed one there, this time he had to wait to see at what point in the game “Whassup?” would air.

 

This part is equally nerve-racking, Warren explains, “because, let’s say, the game is a one-sided slaughter, and everyone knows it by halftime. [This means] the interest in the game (and your ad) can suffer. It just oozes away. You can feel it when you’re watching it. Or the halftime show sucks, or both. The advertising real estate in the second half can lose value in terms of viewers who are excitedly watching their screens. The opposite can also be true: A nail-biting finish can add value to commercials that air in the fourth quarter. You never know.”

 

The first half went by, and “Whassup?” still hadn’t played.

 

Luckily, the 2000 Super Bowl was what’s now considered one of the greatest Super Bowls ever. The St. Louis Rams led the Tennessee Titans by nine going into halftime. After a second-half rally by the Titans, the game concluded on a last-minute goal-line tackle, which cemented it into the NFL’s Greatest Games series as “The Longest Yard” and earned the Rams their first Super Bowl win. The halftime show (Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Toni Braxton) was a hit.

 

And then, finally, “Whassup?” played, right after halftime.

 

“After the halftime show, the energy was really good,” Warren says, “and it turned out my Bud ad was just the right thing in that environment.”

 

Viral Before Viral Was a Thing

 

The stars aligned for “Whassup?” to be a hit commercial during the Super Bowl, but Warren says he had no idea what would happen next.

 

“We weren’t completely surprised when it was a hit,” he tells MEL . “It was more a feeling of relief. That was the game we were playing — we were going to be on the Super Bowl, and the Anheuser-Busch client usually won the “best ad of the big game” poll in USA Today, which was important to them.”

 

Warren says the goal of the ad was to “get American beer drinkers shouting Whassup? at each other,” but what surprised him was “all the online action we got.”

 

“It was a truly globally viral phenomenon. We hit at the right time — everyone had email by then, [and] ‘Whassup?’ traveled the world via email, which was new at the time.”

 

The creative director recalls heading back to his hometown of Galway, Ireland, in March 2000, about a month after the Super Bowl. “The first night I was back home — at midnight — all the young drinkers came staggering out of the pubs into the town square, shouting Whassuuuuuup! at each other. I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “It was simultaneously a great buzz and a bit of a chill. I hadn’t envisioned the internet viral effect… the commercial had clearly ‘aired’ in Ireland via the internet. Everybody already knew it and loved it without paying a penny to put it on TV.

 

The ad went on to earn countless advertising awards, beyond the industry’s top achievements — the Cannes Grand Prix, a CLIO and two Emmy nominations.

 

With “endless internet parodies of the ad and every TV show referencing the campaign” came endless free publicity, and the ad took on a life of its own, Warren says. “It’s hard to communicate how popular this advertising campaign was. It hit like a comet. … My wildest dreams [were] exceeded, and my dreams were pretty wild. … Not many people get to see what I saw.”

 

As for why “Whassup?” struck such a chord, Warren has two theories:

 

“At the time we were talking to the generation of young (white) drinkers that had swallowed hip-hop culture whole. Eminem had just hit. African-American culture was loved by everyone. White people in the Midwest were trying to sound like they were from Compton. So this was welcomed. And a commercial for Budweiser starring black guys was bound to cause a stir, but our timing was good. The younger generation was on our side.

 

“The other thing that struck me about the phrase was that it is physically pleasing to shout the phrase Whasssssuuuuuup!!! It was cathartic to say it. A little bit of nervous energy leaves your body when you shout it. Much like when you say Borat’s ‘Niiiiice!’ catchphrase. Both are exclamatory and require energy to say. You have to commit.”

 

For Warren, the ad helped launch his career — he eventually founded and now runs his own agency in Chicago, The Escape Pod — but he says he’s grown numb to “Whassup?” still echoing throughout pop culture.

 

“I have spent almost 20 years having echoes of this idea circulate endlessly around the culture and the internet. I am numb to them now. Someone just told me they play the whole ad in the new Christian Bale Vice movie. That should be exciting, and it’s not even remotely exciting to me. That’s the bit that’s weird.”

15954: The Queen Of Beers…?

 

The passing of Queen Elizabeth II has sparked reflections on British colonialism in Africa and other countries during her reign.

 

The reactions might inspire a rethinking of the iconic Great Kings and Queens of Africa art series from Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch.

 

15855: Bud Light And The Lightness Of Pitch Participants.

 

Advertising Age reported that at least five White advertising agencies are pitching for the Bud Light U.S. creative account, including Anomaly, Johannes Leonardo, Gut, WPP’s Cavalry and The Martin Agency. Okay, technically, Gut is not a White advertising agency—although it would be interesting to learn if Papel & Caneta had an opinion on the matter. Regardless, should the competing shops be tasked with addressing internal DEI as part of the review process, it will be the most creative promotional propaganda presented for sure.

 

And given Budweiser’s alleged commitment to fairness and equality, will Black advertising agencies play a role in the pitch—or must they settle for a pitcher of Bud Light and crumbs?

 

Whassup, Bud Light?

 

12478: Shit On Anomaly.

A quick point about Anomaly, the White advertising agency that insists it’s not a White advertising agency, despite continuously excreting shit that looks, sounds, feels, tastes and smells like the same old shit produced by every other White advertising agency. For the Super Bowl, Anomaly presented the Budweiser “Lost Dog” commercial that topped USA TODAY’s Ad Meter—but failed to nab the oh-so-coveted Super Clio trophy—while also vomiting up the hugely unpopular and hackneyed Budweiser “Brewed The Hard Way” spot. Sorry, but Anomaly doesn’t know dog shit from regular shit.

11372: This Bud’s For Emergencies.

From The New York Post…

Budweiser drinkers most likely to end up in emergency room

By Bryan Hood

It’s long been known that alcohol plays a part in a third of emergency room visits, but a new report finds that some beverages are more likely to factor into those visits than others.

A study done at Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore found that five beers in particular tended to lead to ER trips.

According to “Alcohol Brand Use and Injury in the Emergency Department: A Pilot Study” those were Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice and Bud Light.

Two of the brands – Steel Reserve and Colt 45 — are malt liquors, beers known for having a high alcohol content.

Budweiser, which touts itself as the “King of Beers,” was by far the leader in sending people to the E.R. The study found that 15 percent of patients had drank the beverage in the hours leading up to their visit.

The study was the first of its kind.

10700: This Bud’s Not For You.

From The New York Post…

Budweiser wants logo removed from ‘Flight’

From ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Denzel Washington’s character in “Flight” drinks a lot throughout the film, but his portrayal of a highly functioning alcoholic pilot isn’t going down well with brewing company Anheuser-Busch or the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.

Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington’s character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.

Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in “Flight,” which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington’s character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn’t license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn’t have given permission if asked.

Although product placement, where companies pay producers to have their brands seen on-camera, have become ubiquitous in movies and television, experts say studios are not obligated to get permission before featuring a product in their work.

Rob McCarthy, vice president of Budweiser, wrote in a statement to The Associated Press that the company wasn’t contacted by Paramount or the production company of director Robert Zemeckis for permission to use the beer in “Flight.”

“We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” McCarthy wrote. “We have asked the studio to obscure the Budweiser trademark in current digital copies of the movie and on all subsequent adaptations of the film, including DVD, On Demand, streaming and additional prints not yet distributed to theaters.”

A spokesman for Zemeckis referred questions to Paramount, which did not return an email message seeking comment.

James Curich, a spokesman for Stoli distributor William Grant & Sons, said the company has a strict code for how the vodka is portrayed in films and is committed to marketing it responsibly. “Considering the subject matter of this film, it is not something in which we would have participated,” he wrote in an email.

Despite the companies’ dissatisfaction with their inclusion in the film, experts say there is little they can do about it legally.

Trademark laws “don’t exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items,” said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project. “It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that’s sort of led to a culture where they expect they’ll have control. That’s not a right the trademark law gives them.”

Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren’t pleased with the portrayals.

“It wouldn’t have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands,” said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school’s Entertainment & Media Law Institute. “In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it.”

Other vodka brands, including Absolut and Smirnoff, are also included in the film. Representatives of those companies did not return messages seeking comment.

Paramount has some experience with a company upset with its inclusion in a film. In 2003 the studio won a case after the makers of the “Slip ‘N Slide” sued over the use of the product in the film “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.”

In that case, a court found that requiring Paramount to alter the film and its marketing would “generate more hardship than it alleviates.”

Dougherty and Mark Partridge, a Chicago intellectual property lawyer, also noted that a court rejected an effort to get by Caterpillar Inc. to get its logo removed from tractors driven by the villains in 2003’s “George of the Jungle 2.” The company had argued its trademark was harmed by having its product associated with the film’s villains.

Partridge said with the explosion of product placement in recent years, a company might try to make an argument that by the brand appearing in a film, the audience assumed it had granted permission. “You’d have to have proof that people actually making an association and believing it was authorized,” he said.

“It might be a different world,” he said, adding, “I still think it’s an uphill haul.”

10632: Budweiser Crowns Itself.

Advertising Age reported Anheuser-Busch InBev is launching Budweiser “Black Crown” beer. Sounds like a perfect fit for Translation and Steve Stoute. They could even bring back the Great Kings and Queens of Africa promotion.

Coming Soon: Budweiser ‘Black Crown’?

AB-InBev Gets Label Approval For Potential Bud Line Extension

By E.J. Schultz

Is Anheuser-Busch InBev planning to follow up Bud Light Platinum with Budweiser “Black Crown?”

The brewer has asked for and received approval for a proposed label for the higher-alcohol Bud line extension, described as a “golden amber lager” that is “distinctively smooth and beechwood finished,” according to this application with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

The brew is listed at 6% alcohol by volume, which would put it a full point above regular Budweiser’s 5% ABV, and match the alcohol content of Bud Light Platinum, which was launched in early 2012 and has found early success. AB-InBev declined to comment on the Black Crown application.

Platinum benefited from a big ad push, including two Super Bowl spots. The timing of the filing for “Black Crown” suggests that it could be in line for a similarly hefty ad backing. Still, it is too early to tell AB-InBev’s exact plans for the brew, including whether or not the company will make it part of its beer portfolio or if the new extension is simply being considered.

The brewer is scheduled to hold a meeting with distributors in early November at which time big plans are usually announced. The lead agency for Budweiser is Anomaly, while Translation handles Bud Light.

AB-InBev has also filed an application for “Beck’s Sapphire,” a potential line extension for Beck’s which is described as having “German Sapphire Hops,” according to the application. Sapphire, incidentally, is also listed at 6% ABV.

The potential line extensions come as big brewers put more attention on innovations as they compete with newly aggressive liquor brands and craft brews, many of which have higher alcohol contents than traditional light lagers such as Bud Light and Miller Lite. The brewers seem to be targeting a mid-level price range that positions their new brews as slightly less expensive than craft brews but still at a premium to mainstream lagers.

MillerCoors, for instance, is out with “Third Shift,” an amber lager that is priced a bit lower than the average craft in a category MillerCoors is calling “invitation” beers. Earlier this week MillerCoors Chief Marketing Officer Andy England told Ad Age that he sees a “huge mid-level price opportunity.”

Budweiser has already tested line extensions on a limited basis this year with its “Project 12.” For the project, brewmasters at 12 AB InBev breweries created their own small-batch “tribute” beers, each with a distinct style. The brewer pared the list of creations to three brews made at breweries in Los Angeles, St. Louis and Williamsburg, Va. that will be available in a limited-edition sampler pack available beginning Oct. 29. The L.A. beer is an amber lager with 6% ABV, which, on the surface, sounds kind of similar to Black Crown.

10205: Bud Light Lime Spot Is A Lemon.

This new Bud Light Lime commercial from Translation is literally one gigantic stereotype.

10117: New Mainstream = Old Stereotypes.

Advertising Age presented another fluff piece proclaiming, “Multicultural is the New Mainstream”—especially among beer brands. Sounds like someone’s drinking the malt liquor Kool-Aid. In the recent MillerCoors shakeup, minority shops were not mentioned at all. To learn that the targeted agencies retained their assignments—or Jay-Z will stage a concert for Budweiser—is hardly a milestone moment. If the beer companies want to prove their commitment to non-White audiences, award AOR status to a non-White agency. Hell, MillerCoors handed its Coors business to a WPP coalition featuring at least two Chicago-based White agencies that are barely agencies (JWT Chicago and Grey). It’s a safe bet that the shops handling digital duties for MillerCoors receive greater marketing funds than the minorities. The Ad Age piece opened by stating, “The color lines are blurring in the beer business.” But the trade publication illustrated the story with a Latino ad featuring a soccer player—and highlighted increased integration of hip hop. Guess the New Mainstream is the Old Stereotypes.

Multicultural Is the New Mainstream for Brewers in Search of Growth

As Hispanics, African-Americans Become Crucial, MillerCoors, A-B Ease Off Frat-Boy Approach

By E.J. Schultz

The color lines are blurring in the beer business.

In an emerging multicultural strategy, brewers are making fewer overt appeals to African-Americans and Hispanics in targeted media. Instead, marketers are finding subtle ways to talk to all demographics at once in general-market campaigns meant to appeal to a drinking audience that is growing more diverse by the day as more millennials turn 21. Here’s what viewers can expect: Fewer ads filled with frat-boy antics and more spots with music, including from hip-hop artists with crossover appeal.

“Ethnic marketing is now the mainstream,” said Paul Chibe, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s VP-U.S. marketing.

It’s really a matter of survival. Hispanics and African-Americans are expected to drive 70% of beer growth from 2000 to 2020, according to industry estimates cited by Heineken USA. But rather than segmenting the markets, some brands have found better results with more inclusive general- market advertising. African-Americans have influence over white drinkers, and Hispanic audiences are so large and acculturated that it’s imperative to speak to both in general-market media.

“Brands are finally seizing the opportunity and moving beyond this age-old assumption that you have to lead mass efforts through general-market insights,” said Ahmad Islam, managing partner of multicultural agency Commonground, which works on MillerCoors brands. “The idea that you can actually lead with more of an urban sensibility in the right context and still have relevance to the masses is … being more broadly embraced.”

And there is some evidence the new approaches are working. Bud Light, Coors Light and Miller Lite all had higher perception scores among millennial African-Americans and Hispanics this spring, according to a survey by YouGov BrandIndex.

This is good news for multicultural shops, which are winning more business from brewers, including general-market assignments. (Notably, when MillerCoors recently reshuffled its agency roster, Commonground and Hispanic shop Bromley survived unscathed, even as the brewer cut ties with longtime Coors agency Interpublic Group of Cos.’ DraftFCB in favor of a newly formed entity at WPP.)

Coors Light is doing more testing of general-market ads with Hispanic and African-American audiences “to make sure they see themselves in the work just as much as the overall market [does],” said Al Patel, VP-multicultural marketing for MillerCoors. The brewer had historically underperformed with Hispanics and African-Americans. But the two demographics drove all of the brand’s growth last year, Mr. Patel said, helping Coors Light pass Budweiser as the nation’s second-bestselling beer behind Bud Light.

Sometimes the smallest details matter the most. Consider an ad Commonground did for Coors Light a couple years ago featuring an African-American man boarding the iconic Coors Light cold train. He is shown leaving work, giving his colleagues a traditional handshake. But when he gets onboard, he greets his buddies with a “dap,” a more casual, rhythmic handshake common in African-American communities.

The contrast hits “what is a reality for a lot African-Americans, especially male professionals, which is living in this dual world: The way I have to behave in my professional world vs. the way I behave and function when I’m with my friends,” Mr. Islam said. While that subtlety might escape a white viewer, there is a more universal message: There’s nothing like a cold beer after a long workday. One of Coors Light’s most successful general-market spots was originally conceived as an African-American-targeted campaign. It features hip-hop mogul Ice Cube arguing with a bottle of Coors Light over which is colder, Cube or the brew.

When Commonground first approached MillerCoors Chief Marketing Officer Andy England with the ad, he told the shop that it “feels much, much bigger than just African-American,” Mr. Islam recalled. So they unleashed it into the general market last year. It was the right call. The ad stole the show when it made its debut at a distributors meeting, drawing big cheers from the overwhelmingly white crowd of wholesalers.

MillerCoors still targets specific audiences, even ramping up efforts to reach Hispanics in their neighborhoods with point-of-sale messaging touting its sponsorship of a Mexican soccer league. But even within Hispanic communities, lines are blurring. For instance, Bromley, the brand’s Hispanic agency, used to create separate Coors Light TV spots for Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. The Puerto Rican ads were more urban, while the Mexican spots featured Western gear such as cowboy hats.

But as the percentage of U.S.-born Hispanics has grown, the ads evolved to include partygoers of all ethnicities, including some spots that are running in the general market. The ads are “portraying folks as how they see their world. [And] they see their worlds as pretty diverse worlds, so it has to be relevant and real in terms of how they live their lives,” said Ernest Bromley, CEO of the shop.

Inclusion was also on the mind of Heineken USA when it launched its “Legends” campaign last year. One spot shows a man charming his way into a lavish party filled with people of all colors, nationalities and cultures. At the same time, the importer scrapped its African-American-targeted TV ads because the “Legends” campaign tested exceedingly well with the demographic, according to Heineken.

Anheuser-Busch, meantime, is making music a bigger part of its advertising because “music has a cultural relevance that is transcendent,” Mr. Chibe said. The brewer has given heavy mass-media airplay to a Bud Light spot featuring Cuban-American hip-hop star Pitbull by Hispanic agency LatinWorks. And A-B recently announced a Labor Day weekend music festival called “Budweiser Made in America,” headlined and curated by Jay-Z and featuring rock, hip-hop, R&B, Latin and dance acts.

Steve Stoute, CEO of Translation, an A-B ad agency that helped develop the festival, said: “I don’t see [the festival] as African-American … I see it as inclusive and responsive to mirroring what’s taking place in America today.”

10105: Budweiser Loves Hip Hop.

From Advertising Age…

Jay-Z Strikes Deal With Budweiser to Stage Annual Concert

‘Made in America’ Part of Beermaker’s Emphasis on Music, Multicultural Audiences By Rupal Parekh

Budweiser is reviving its annual tradition via a partnership with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, who has agreed to curate and headline a summer music festival in Philadelphia, “Made in America.”

The move is a bid to breathe new life into Budweiser Superfest, which between 1979 and 1999 was known for featuring some of the biggest names in music, including Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. Budweiser tried to bring the festival back recently—last year’s show featured songstress Jill Scott—but it didn’t reach the series didn’t seem to match its former glory.

Rebranding the event “Made in America” is a play on words: It underscores the Anheuser-Busch brand’s American heritage, as well as a song featured on Jay-Z’s 2011 album with Kanye West, Watch the Throne.

Company execs say this is part of an effort to target a younger, more multicultural demographic.

“Budweiser is expanding into a bigger and deeper connection [with consumers] through music,” said Rob McCarthy, VP-Budweiser at Anheuser-Busch. The initiative is meant to “engage young adults who have a passion for music,” and is focused on an artist lineup that is “very diverse, touching all [consumers] that make up America,” he said.

Indeed, the brewer has put more emphasis on music across its brand portfolio under U.S. VP-Marketing Paul Chibe, who took that role about a year ago.

Kanye West’s “Runaway” was the featured song in a Super Bowl spot for higher-alcohol Bud Light Platinum. Bud Light Lime’s newest ads feature a remix of Will Smith’s “Summertime” by Swizz Beatz that was produced for the campaign.

As part of the Bud deal, Jay-Z will curate a roster of 30 artists and headline the concert. Made in America will also be available for people nationwide via live-streaming. An unspecified portion of the proceeds will go to charity, Budweiser said.

The event is just one more way that Budweiser is trying to emulate Coca-Cola; the brewer has previously stated a strategy of becoming a truly global beer brand, or the “Coke of Beers.”

Coca-Cola has put a renewed emphasis on connecting with consumers via music. At Ad Age’s Digital Conference in April, Coca-Cola announced its launch of a new partnership with Spotify. This year it also kicked off its largest teen-focused campaign, Coca-Cola Music.

Budweiser’s lead agency is Anomaly, but this deal was struck by Translation, which was chosen last year to handle advertising for the Bud Light Platinum brand and other brand extensions.

Jay-Z has partnered with Budweiser before. In 2006 the company named him a brand director for Budweiser Select. But in 2007 Select saw sales declines.

E.J. Schultz contributed to this story.

10076: A Case For Boycotting Bud.

From The New York Times…

A Battle With the Brewers

By Nicholas D. Kristof

AFTER seeing Anheuser-Busch’s devastating exploitation of American Indians, I’m done with its beer.

The human toll is evident here in Whiteclay: men and women staggering on the street, or passed out, whispers of girls traded for alcohol. The town has a population of about 10 people, but it sells more than four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually — because it is the main channel through which alcohol illegally enters the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation a few steps away.

Pine Ridge, one of America’s largest Indian reservations, bans alcohol. The Oglala Sioux who live there struggle to keep alcohol out, going so far as to arrest people for possession of a can of beer. But the tribe has no jurisdiction over Whiteclay because it is just outside the reservation boundary.

So Anheuser-Busch and other brewers pour hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol into the liquor stores of Whiteclay, knowing that it ends up consumed illicitly by Pine Ridge residents and fuels alcoholism, crime and misery there. In short, a giant corporation’s business model here is based on violating tribal rules and destroying the Indians’ way of living.

It’s as if Mexico legally sold methamphetamine and crack cocaine to Americans in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez.

Pine Ridge encompasses one of the poorest counties in the entire United States — Shannon County, S.D. — and life expectancy is about the same as in Afghanistan. As many as two-thirds of adults there may be alcoholics, and one-quarter of children are born suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

In short, this isn’t just about consenting adults. Children are born with neurological damage and never get a chance.

“Every person on this reservation has personally seen the negative effects of alcohol, with loved ones or themselves,” said John Yellow Bird Steele, the tribe president.

The only purpose of Whiteclay is to sell to tribe members — there’s nobody else around — and the tribe can’t do anything about it.

“It’s hopeless; the tribe can’t stop the alcohol,” said Kenny Short Bear, 45, who was slumped on the ground outside one of the alcohol stores. He said he was a former teacher who had lost his job and his family because of alcoholism — and then he asked me for $5.

While some Miller, Coors and Pabst beer is sold in the stores, the great majority is Anheuser-Busch products, including Hurricane malt liquor and Budweiser beer.

The tribe says that more than 90 percent of arrests by the tribal police are alcohol-related, along with 90 percent of arrests of juveniles. Children often begin drinking in their early teens.

Alcohol also fuels stunning rates of domestic violence, suicide and crime on the reservation. I spoke to one family that first lost a father to cirrhosis, then a son, killed in a knife fight with his own cousin over a bottle of beer. A few weeks later, the dead man’s younger sister killed herself at age 16.

Since March, I have repeatedly tried to get a comment from Anheuser-Busch or, more recently, its lawyers. The company has had nothing to say, not a peep in its defense.

The Oglala Sioux tribe filed a lawsuit in February against Anheuser-Busch and other brewers, as well as local retailers and distributors. I don’t know how the lawsuit will go, but I’m pretty sure a nationwide boycott of Budweiser would wake the company up.

Victor Clarke, manager of a grocery store in Whiteclay and its unofficial spokesman, acknowledged that the alcohol sold in Whiteclay exacts a huge toll on the reservation. But he said that if these stores closed, Indians would just drive to more distant towns to get a drink.

There’s something to that. As Eli Bald Eagle, who described himself as an alcoholic for more than 20 years, told me unsteadily, “Nobody’s going to stop us from being alcoholics.”

Yet Bald Eagle, like many others, had simply walked into Whiteclay and didn’t have ready access to a car. Certainly it would be more difficult for young people to start on the road to alcoholism if they had to drive to get beer. Studies have found that when there are fewer liquor stores, there is less drinking and fewer alcohol-related crimes.

One nifty solution, proposed by former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota, would be for the Obama administration to extend Pine Ridge reservation lines to include Whiteclay. No land titles would change hands, but reservation laws would apply and liquor sales would become illegal.

For now, Pine Ridge’s alcohol problem is matched only by Anheuser-Busch’s greed problem. Brewers market beers with bucolic country scenes, but the image I now associate with Budweiser is of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.

That’s why I’ll pass on a Bud, and I hope you’ll join me.

9783: InBev Not Indian-Friendly…?

Reuters reported on a $500 million lawsuit filed by Native Americans against beer manufacturers including Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide Inc, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company and Pabst Brewing Company. An indirect link to the Budweiser ad posted earlier?

Indian tribe files $500 million suit against big brewers

By James B. Kelleher

(Reuters) - A Native American Indian tribe sued leading beer makers seeking $500 million in damages and accusing them of knowingly contributing to “crippling” alcoholism rates on one of the nation’s largest reservations in South Dakota.

The suit, filed by the Oglala Sioux tribe, alleges the brewers are “engaged in a common enterprise focused on assisting and participating in the illegal importation of alcohol” onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal.

The brewers sued include Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide Inc, SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company and Pabst Brewing Company, as well as four retailers in Whiteclay, Neb., and the distributors who sell to them.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in federal court in Lincoln, Neb., claims the defendants have knowingly turned Whiteclay, a small town Nebraska side of the border with South Dakota, into a major source of alcohol smuggling to the reservation. Whiteclay sells volumes of beer “far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the laws of the state of Nebraska.”

The lawsuit says Whiteclay has a population of fewer than 12 people and “no publicly accessible place to lawfully consume alcohol.” Yet each day, the four retailers in town sell more than 13,000 cans of beer.

Much of that beer ends up on the reservation, according to the lawsuit, where it has “devastating effects” on the tribe.

The suit says alcoholism is a scourge on Pine Ridge, a 2 million-acre reservation in southwestern South Dakota that is home to an estimated 40,000 people, most of them enrolled members of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

Eighty-five percent of the tribe’s members are “affected by alcoholism,” according to the suit, and one in four children born on Pine Ridge is diagnosed with either fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

The tribe is seeking $500 million in compensation to pay for “all damages it has suffered in the past and in reasonably likely to suffer in the future” as a result of the alcohol sales in Whiteclay.

SAB Miller declined to comment on the lawsuit. Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide Inc and Molson Coors Brewing Company did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is one of the poorest spots in the country, according to the U.S. Census. More than 50 percent of its residents live below the poverty line, compared with 15.1 percent nationally. Shannon County, which lies entirely within the reservation, is the third poorest county in the country, the Census says.

The unemployment rate consistently tops 80 percent, according to most estimates. Violent crime and other social ills, including a high suicide rate, are all major problems on the reservation, according to the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

A 2011 Centers for Disease Control report on the health of racial groups said that Native Americans report more binge drinking episodes per month and higher alcohol consumption per episode than other races.

A number of theories have been suggested to explain why binge drinking—defined as five drinks in a sitting for men and four for women—is such a problem among Native Americans, according to a National Institutes of Health survey of literature.

Among those are high unemployment and poverty rates on reservations, NIH said. Of the five counties in the United States with poverty rates greater than 39 percent, four are located within American Indian reservations, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

One other theory is that American Indian traditional culture may help explain the attraction of drinking. American Indians may “drink rapidly to induce an altered state of consciousness, a practice congruent with some Native American practices,” the NIH survey said.

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Greg McCune)

9780: This Bud’s For Sioux…?

Before crowning itself The King of Beers, it appears Budweiser was first a lowly chief. And what’s with the image—did the Native Americans just trade land for some Bud?

9779: BHM 2012—WWW.

Black History Month presents patronizing via social media. Ronald McDonald woos with 365Black® while Colonel Sanders counters with KFC360º. AT&T parties for 28 Days and Allstate pushes its Beyond February Program. The Few and The Proud salute Montford Point Marines while American Airlines flies with BlackAtlas. Verizon is Celebrating Your Story as Procter & Gamble proclaims My Black Is Beautiful, a copycat effort that inspired more copycats like Pepsi We Inspire and Pine-Sol Powerful Women. Not sure whatever happened to the Budweiser Great Kings and Queens of Africa.

9326: Bud Light Loves Hip Hop.

Advertising Age reported that Bud Light and Latinworks are launching a campaign with recording artist Pitbull, demonstrating that Latino adpeople love hip hop too. In fact, Pitbull has already been hawking products for the Latino market, including Dr. Pepper. While the Bud Light spot has not yet aired, there’s a behind-the-scenes video that makes it look like, well, the Dr. Pepper spot. Whatever.

Bud Light Senior Director Mike Sundet gushed, “[Pitbull] epitomizes everything that our brand is about. He’s fun. He’s outgoing. He’s social. Obviously he has huge appeal within the Latino segment, but like Bud Light, he is broadly appealing [with] huge crossover appeal to the general market as well. … We’re not even looking at this as a Latino campaign. We’re looking at this as a multicultural campaign that is going to reach all of our core drinkers.”

Does that mean Bud Light will stop looking at Latinworks as a Latino agency? Will the shop be invited to pitch for AOR status on the brand? The clients—and officials at parent network Omnicom—would probably have to consume quite a bit of Bud Light before that would happen.

8857: This Bud’s For Belgians.

There’s a new Budweiser commercial hyping 4th of July celebrations—which MultiCultClassics can’t find online yet—with the beer brand displaying an All-American persona. Um, isn’t Budweiser now technically headquartered in Belgium?

8324: Africa In Sao Paulo Wins Bud In Brazil.

Advertising Age reported that Africa bested the Omnicom network to launch Budweiser in Brazil. OK, the agency is not in Africa; rather, it’s in Sao Paulo. But Africa did beat Omnicom at its own game, landing the new account without a review. However, Africa’s holding company, Grupo ABC, also owns a sizable stake in DDB’s Brazilian agency, which initially won the business in a previous pitch. If any of this is making sense, you’ve probably been drinking too much Brazilian Budweiser.

A-B Picks Africa to Launch Bud in Brazil
Grupo ABC Agency Wasn’t Even Part of Review but Beat Last Finalist DDB

By Claudia Penteado

SAO PAULO—In a surprise move, Anheuser-Busch InBev picked local Sao Paulo shop Africa to launch Budweiser beer in Brazil this year over the brand’s international network DDB—even though DDB’s Brazilian agency was the only contender left in the lengthy review.

Nizan Guanaes, chairman of Grupo ABC, the Brazilian holding company that owns Africa and a sizable stake in DDB’s Brazilian agency, is believed to have stepped in when AmBev, the beer marketer’s Latin American operation, was dissatisfied with DDB and suggested Africa. Mr. Guanaes, who ran DDB’s Brazilian agency in the past, started Africa in 2002 and the agency is now among the top 10 agencies in Brazil. Mr. Guanaes, who is in Paris this week, could not immediately be reached for comment.

AmBev started the review almost a year ago and was down to two finalists, Leo Burnett and DDB, last September when Leo Burnett got a call from the client to say the agency didn’t win. The Brazilian market has been waiting for an announcement that never came that the account would go to DDB.

Four months later, AmBev’s communications director, Alexandre Loures, confirmed today that Africa will launch Bud in Brazil. Africa wasn’t involved in the earlier pitch but is the agency of record for another AmBev brand, Brahma, Brazil’s No. 2 beer. During last year’s World Cup, Anheuser-Busch focused its massive marketing campaign for Brazil on Brahma, with work from Africa. DDB has other AmBev assignments, too, for Bohemia beer and soft drink Guarana Antarctica.

Budweiser is expected to launch this fall, in Brazil’s premium beer category, competing against Heineken, which is also distributed in Brazil by Ambev. Heineken is also reviewing its agency relationships. The brand works with Fischer & Fala, and uses a Rio de Janeiro agency, Mohallem/Artplan, for the Rock in Rio music festival Heineken sponsors.

8277: 360 Degrees, 365 Days.

All Black websites look alike.