Jared Prescott
Dude, Bud Light is selling wit
College is a new opportunity for many people. Many students are living on their own for the first time, and with this newfound freedom comes a huge responsibility. One of the new aspects of college is the availability of alcohol. It is prevalent on many college campuses throughout the United States. Alcohol is bought in mass quantities on college campuses and any alcohol that is cheap and readily available is preferred. Bud Light is one brand of beer that is extremely popular, and one of the main reasons is because of the television ads that are readily available for everyone to see. They put out many different commercials, all with the idea of marketing their beer in today’s culture. The more their beer is mentioned the more people will think of it when they are in a store deciding which type of beer to purchase. The point of beer commercials is to distinguish your product from every other type, therefore Bud Light is not selling beer, they are selling humor.
Anheuser Busch is the company that brews Bud Light. This brewer is based in St. Louis, Missouri and has been producing beer since 1852. They have a huge market share in the United States, at about 48%. Bud Light was introduced to the market in 1982, and was first named Budweiser Light, as an offshoot of Anheuser Busch’s original beer, Budweiser. Today, Bud Light is the number one selling beer in the United States (Goldammer). It is brewed in 12 breweries around the United States. Anheuser Busch has more then 600 wholesalers around the country which allows the beer to be sold very easily, and relatively cheap. Anheuser-Busch has been one of the main brewers of beer in the United States. Bud Light is made in a very specific manner. It is made with a blend of two-row malt, six-row malt, and cereal grains. It is then brewed with many natural ingredients, such as water, grains, barley, hops, malt, yeast, and rice. It is generally bottled into a twelve-ounce serving, but they also produce cans. The twelve-ounce bottles contain 110 calories and have a 4.2% alcohol by volume. It contains 6.6 grams of carbohydrates, and .9 grams of protein, but does not contain any fat or cholesterol. They have a tradition of always brewing their beer in this flavorful manner which has allowed Anheuser-Busch to be one of the top providers of beer for centuries.
Anheuser Busch has often run humorous commercials to garner the attention of people around the country. Their company is currently running commercials about having superpower abilities when you drink the beer, and then something goes horribly wrong, and then they say that the superpower ability is no longer available in Bud Light. These commercials are funny due to the ridiculous events that occur when the people supposedly have the superpower ability. These ads are in stark juxtaposition to those being run by Miller Lite, where they only advertise on the taste of the beer, and since the consumer has no proof readily available they just have to take the company's word for the excellent taste of their beer. Whereas, Bud Light is advertising in a humorous manner that makes their commercials and their product stand out in the consumers’ mind. This strategy is pretty common, many beer “…firms often use advertising as a mix element that informs and persuades simultaneously. For example, a typical beer commercial will contain product/brand-related information, but concurrently the creative strategy contains elements that have nothing to do with the product per se, but helps build the so-called brand effect” (Banerjee, 132). This is one of the many accepted strategies of advertising. Bud Light takes advantage of this strategy, in many of their commercials. However, the “dude” commercial, does not use this strategy of combination. As they do not advertise any facts about the beer, they only try to persuade audience using clever methods.
Bud Light's "Dude" commercial:
“Dude” is a word that many people use throughout the country. It is a saying that everyone can relate to. It also de-individualizes something, as anybody who is saying dude is not actually conveying what they are saying through words but more through tone or inflection. Dude can be a word that refers to anyone, male or female. Everybody can relate to the word dude, and hence they are opening up their advertising to everybody. Anheuser-Busch is trying to formulate a product that everyone can relate to. The “dude” commercials main point is to emphasize things that are annoying, and then the main character says “dude” to note his displeasure of something that someone else is doing, or has done. At the end, he says “dude” when someone orders a drink besides Bud Light. He is saying what they are doing is annoying or stupid. We get the sense that the word “dude” can mean many different things if said with the right inflection. Sometimes he is saying how excited he is with the inflection of his voice. It can be a greeting, a condemnation, a commendation, or just a statement of fact. This one word takes on many connotations in this commercial, and it signifies the diversity of which the word can be applied to and the diversity that the beer can be applied to. Anheuser-Busch is saying that “dude” can be applied to many circumstances, and Bud Light can be applied to many different people of diverse backgrounds. They are selling the use of the word dude, and the cleverness of their ad instead of the product.
The “dude” commercial has created a culture of its’ own. It tries to appeal to men, because it is often said that men talk in shorthanded codes, so that they do not have to express their emotions. This commercial is playing off of this preconceived stereotype. It is saying that a man can express a full range of emotions with just this one word. Many men can appeal to this, because they know exactly what the guy is saying without having him expound on his thoughts other then the use of the word “dude”. Men are more likely to drink beer then women, so appealing to men is the most likely way to generate the most sales (Herd). In addition, these humorous commercials stick out in the minds of people who are not 21. Children have very impressionable minds, and having not tried beer, when they do go to try beer, when they are 21 of course, they are more likely to try the beer that has been imprinted on their mind from television ads. By advertising on the market Bud Light is specifically trying to advertise to males above the age of 21, however their ads appeal to people of all ages, which helps Anheuser-Busch in the long run. Bud Light is trying to promote a lifestyle where the beer is an essential part of life, and everybody wants Bud light as opposed to any other brand because that would not be as cool. They are also associating this one word with their product, so that in the real world whenever someone says that one word everyone thinks of the beer. Since, “dude” is used commonly, the product hopefully will be in the consumers’ minds a good amount. However they are not selling the qualities of the product.
Obviously a beer company cannot project a lifestyle that involves heavy drinking. That is dangerous to people’s health. Beer companies are not allowed to advertise someone drinking a beer so they have to convey a favorable lifestyle without directly showing someone drinking the beer. This is not an easy feet to accomplish, so they work very hard at advertising to the people who are most likely to go out and drink. So they try to appeal to people in the 21-30 range more then any other. They often show people at clubs who are drinking, or people on a date; two occurrences which are more common among people in their 20’s. They show a lot of things that people in this age range can relate to; events such as playing sports, or an annoying coworker. This allows them to portray an average person’s lifestyle. Hopefully appealing to many people on an individual basis, where they can say, that happened to me, Bud Light knows what I am thinking. That is the type of thinking that Bud Light is trying to instill in their customers.
One of the main aspects of advertising is to make the product to as many people as possible. "Since soda is not a basic necessity or a traditional beverage choice and since the soda consumer chooses between many brands with almost indistinguishable flavors advertising alone must make the product appealing” (Frank, 170). Like soda, beer is not a necessary product in today’s society. They are both luxury items that people sometimes choose to drink as opposed to more traditional, essential drinks such as milk and water. So the same logic can be applied to beer as Frank applies to soda. Therefore they need to make their ads memorable, because they have to convince the potential consumer to buy beer, and then to specifically buy Bud Light, otherwise their ad campaign fails. Whereas other ad campaigns for more essential goods only need to focus on letting the consumer buy their product. Since beer is not an essential item, many breweries need to sell people on something other then their product, because people do not need their product. They need to be able to sell be relating to people and by making their commercials memorable, and Bud Light does this, but this type of marketing is unfortunately more conventional then we might hope.
Today, advertising has moved into a realm where many people do not advertise the product. “Dude” is just a word, it has nothing to do with Bud Light, and the commercial has nothing to do with Bud Light until the very end, where a small connection is made. However, because of this, now the word “dude” becomes synonymous with Bud Light. An everyday word is attached to an unnecessary product. When the word is used, the product is remembered it sticks out in peoples’ minds. The world we live in is not about who has the best product anymore, it is about who can market their product most effectively; who can attach meaning to a product that has no meaning. Bud Light has effectively done that. They are not selling their brand of beer; they are selling their brand of humor and wit. The American people have responded by buying this brand of advertising.
Works Cited
1) Goldammer, Ted. Beer Sales: The Brewer’s Handbook. Apex Publishers, 2000. 3-32.
2) Herd, Denise. “Sex Ratios of Drinking Patterns and Problems among Blacks and Whites: Results from a National Survey”. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Vol. 58, (1997).
3) Banerjee, Bibek and Bandyopadhyay, Subir. “Advertising Competition under Consumer Inertia”. Marketing Science, Vol. 22, 1, (Winter, 2003), 131-144.
4) Frank, Thomas. “Carnival and Cola: Hip Versus Square in the Cola Wars”. The Conquest of Cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip hop consumerism. University of Chicago Press, 1997. 169-183.
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9 comments:
I liked that you examined the word dude in a way that spread it across demographics giving Bud Light the most bang for its buck. However, because of this widespread appel of dude, is it immoral for Anheuser Busch to advertise using these tactics knowing much of thier audience will not be of age? Or does this not matter because it does not truly promote underage drinking rather humour and wit?
Having written on another beer manufacturer, Samuel Adams, it is very interesting to compare and contrast their extremely different marketing strategies. Bud Light has consistently created commercials that have almost nothing to do with their product, while Samuel Adams launched an entire ad campaign to highlight all the unique qualities of their beer, never once straying from promoting their product. Both brands do focus their commercials for certain demographics, Bud preferring a much younger age group with a focus on males. Sam Adams on the other hand seems to be aiming at an older age and is not afraid to cross racial and gender barriers to attract consumers.
There were A LOT of ideas that were very interesting in your paper, Jared. I think that the idea that Bud Light uses humor to grab its customers is a valid conclusion.
You begin your paper discussing drinking on college campuses and later mention Bud Light is trying to imprint itself in the minds of youth to garner newer generations of customers when they hit 21 years old. I was thinking that perhaps it is likely that the use of humor is intended to draw people UNDER the age of 21 to consumer their beverage (although they can't officially state as much). Might this raise ethical considerations since humor is such a far-reaching tool? Also, banning beer companies from showing someone drinking a beer--but allowing them to use humor as a base--could be perceived to be contradictory. Do you have any ideas of how these issues should be dealt with? (The Bud frogs were taken off air because they were wildly popular and appealed too much to children).
Bud Light employs a similar marketing strategy to that of Sprite before the Sublymonal ads that I wrote about, as they advertise their understanding of the culture, or their own expression of humor and wit, to relate to consumers instead of praising the beer or the taste itself. Most beer commercials are geared towards men since they drink the most, and I think the new ‘Dude’ campaign is an effective strategy, but I think it may be more limited in the age and gender that it advertises towards than other advertisements. ‘Dude’ is obviously a word used mostly by younger people and also people under 21, and I think Bud Light’s campaign focuses more on people who have recently turned 21 and also the large group of consumers under 21 who may or may not already be drinking. Kids who watch commercials but don’t drink yet will be influenced by beer commercials much more than people who have already decided which beers they like, and I think Bud Light realizes this and hopes their ‘Dude’ ads will see an increase in sales in the near future when these 16 and 17 year-olds become 21.
Anheuser Busch is by far the largest beer company in America. I found it interesting that Anheuser Busch seems to use many uniquely American sayings such as "dude" and "whats up" to selling their product in their commercials. Do you think it is these ties to uniquely American culture that propagate Anheuser Busch's image as the American beer?
Anheuser-Busch clearly markets to the younger crowd, and I think even they would be hard-pressed to deny it. The humor and cultural slang delivers an advertisement that is specifically made for the younger crowd and does not really engage the older crowd. Anheuser Busch realizes that the older generations already have a favorite beer and are very difficult to change, therefore by going after the younger crowd they can approach a customer who doeen't have a strong affiliation yet. Whether or not this type of marketing is moral or not, I doubt they are very concerned.
Unlike the analysis of Sam Adams, as shown in one of the other papers, or really almost any brand, Bud Light tends to not focus on the product but rather on the effect. I like the analysis that Bud Light isn't trying to fool anyone by marketing a cheap beer by advocating its taste or quality. Although they don't denounce anything about the quality, its evident that the ads are meant to show an element of fun and group environment through the ads.
Your paper helps surface the idea of hidden marketing techniques that, if discovered by the consumer, would seem appalling. However, left under the radar, tactics such Budweiser’s appeal to younger generations help attract extra, under-age consumers now and simultaneously store up a large consumer base for the future. It is almost frightening how successful products like Bud Light are at accomplishing such an appeal. Do you think this risky approach will catch up to the company later, as it did with the frog campaign, or will it continue to secretly attract the youth?
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