bud light | Direct Marketing Observations

There’s an article in todays online Newsweek about a Bud Light spot that came out in February with little fanfare and completely under the radar. However, the commercial rivals, if not leapfrogs over the Quiznos spot in terms of what they are suggesting, cancel that, in what they are implying, strike that, in terms of what it is saying. Bud Light has taken the game to a new level or perhaps has lowered the game to a whole new level.

Granted, the assumption is that this commercial is directed right at its sweet spot demographic; and that in and of itself is somewhat troubling if only for that fact that it tells you how much Porn has become accepted into mainstream America and mainstream marketing and advertising. The assumption being that nothing in this spot is really outside the norm for the demographic. Or as Newsweek likes to call it, we are undergoing the phenomenon of “Porn Creep”.

Decide for yourself. Has Bud Light taken things to an all time low? Does this make you want to drink their beer? Do you even care?

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A few days ago I wrote that the media was afraid of Web 2.0. I think what makes them more afraid, is the advent and wave of user generated content. In an article specifically about this, titled Bud brings out the dude in consumers, and written by Sean Egen, Sean writes about how Anheuser-Busch decided to take things a step further by offering up its popular “Dude” campaign to the general public. And the results were impressive — even by Bud Light standards.

The offering took place in the form of a call for entries of consumer-generated “Dude” ads. Creators of the videos selected by Anheuser-Busch would be paid $5,000 each for their efforts. Along with the cash, they’d also get exposure in a highly visible online ad campaign. Bud Light would get fresh video content for a very reasonable price.effectiveone executive remarked at

“As for any concerns Bud Light may have had regarding the quality of consumer-generated content, those concerns were quickly overcome as submissions rolled in.

If you look at the current four Bud Light ‘Dude’ commercials that were produced by their agency, and compare them to our top 10 submitted versions, I think you’ll be remarkably surprised at how competitive ours are from a professionalism, acting, editing and sound point of view,” Perry said.

With what people are capable of putting together on little or no budgets anymore, the agencies should be quaking in their boots. Why? Dude…. Come on. Don’t you get it? Below is the Bud Lite Vid.