E-Malt.com News article: USA: Anheuser-Busch’s Ads will dominate Super Bowl

Anheuser-Busch is looking to wow, amuse and, yes, even touch viewers with a lengthy and diverse lineup of Super Bowl advertising on Feb. 4, Chicago Sun-Times published January 25. Having bought five minutes of pricey Super Bowl air time valued altogether at more than $25 million, the St. Louis-based brewery will be by far the dominant advertiser during what is traditionally the single most watched television event annually.

On Wednesday, A-B provided a sneak look at its advertising plans for the 2007 Super Bowl of Ads. It's a pleasure -- and a relief -- to report this year's group of eight or nine spots looks as if it won't include a single resounding horse fart, no kicks to the male crotch and nary a lecherous monkey. Rather, the brewery is reverting to a more traditional lineup of story-driven, comedic work, along with at least one emotionally charged spot starring A-B's iconic Clydesdales.

The brewery also expects to score big with a new spot featuring Latino comedian Carlos Mencia, who, it is hoped, will prove every bit as popular in Anheuser-Busch advertising as did Cedric the Entertainer when he first starred in Bud Light spots several years ago. What's more, Mencia is the kind of act that can potentially click across multiple ethnicities -- a big plus for a mass marketer like Anheuser-Busch.

If A-B sticks with the lineup of spots it is now seriously considering, DDB/Chicago could wind up, once again, as a major agency player in the prestigious, high-profile Super Bowl of Advertising. As many as six of the eight or more spots Anheuser-Busch is considering for this year's Super Bowl are DDB's handiwork. Last year, all of Anheuser-Busch's Super Bowl spots were from DDB.

This year also marks the return of Bob Lachky to the role of Anheuser-Busch's chief creative officer, a post he had held for eight years until, in 2005, he was given the job of helping reignite consumer interest in beer, which had ceded some of its market share, especially among young drinkers, to a variety of other spirits.

While Lachky was engaged in that project, Marlene Coulis oversaw Anheuser-Busch's 2006 Super Bowl of Advertising effort. Thankfully, she helped refocus the brewery and its roster of ad agencies on creating ads that positioned A-B brands as fun-times products. She masterfully cleaned up Anheuser-Busch's act after the debacle that was the brewery's 2004 lineup of ads. That lineup included the aforementioned, horrendously tasteless horse farts, crotch kicks and such.

Lachky appears to have taken a cue from what Coulis began and is working hard to make the new advertising for Super Bowl 2007 both smart and entertaining. It's impossible to say with certainty, however, whether that goal will be entirely achieved, because only snippets of all the spots under consideration for the 2007 Super Bowl were available to view on Wednesday. In an interview, Lachky kept emphasizing how convinced he is that comedian Mencia, who has appeared on the Comedy Central channel, will be every bit the hit that Cedric has been with Anheuser-Busch advertising fans.

Mencia stars in a Super Bowl spot called "Classroom" for Bud Light. In the excerpt we viewed, Mencia portrays a teacher who is educating his students on the proper way to pronounce Bud Light in the South. The spot was created by LatinWorks in Austin, Texas. Lachky called Sergio Alcocer, the agency's chief creative officer, "one of America's top creative officers."

Another spot for Budweiser called "Apocalypse," from DDB/Chicago, features a special-effects car chase and stars NASCAR favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. Lachky might run it during the Super Bowl or hold it for the Daytona 500 later in February.

Jay-Z and football Hall of Famer Don Shula are front and center in a spot for Bud Select about a holographic football game from Cannonball/St. Louis.

A commercial starring some industrious crabs with a catchy, percussive musical underscoring comes from DDB, as does a spot called "International Space Station," which has two astronauts celebrating their imminent return to Earth with a Bud.

A-B's chief creative officer also is keen on another big spot that is still being completed called "Great Apes," from Mortar, a boutique shop headed by Dave Merhar. That commercial is about a group of apes (real ones) plotting to steal some Bud Light from a delivery man. The commercial hasn't been tested with focus groups yet, so Lachky can't say with certainty that it will be in the Super Bowl lineup.

A new twist for A-B this year is four 10-second animated billboard commercial inserts with pre-recorded copy (two in the first half and two in the game's second half). Two of the four billboards will encourage viewers to drink responsibly, and two will tout A-B's new online venture Bud TV, which goes live the day after the Super Bowl.

Initially the Bud TV site will include four or five channels of unbranded entertainment material. DDB/Chicago will have the huge job of adding four or five minutes of new material to the site every day. The site's target audience, Lachky said, is 21- to 27-year-old male beer drinkers.

Another new, up-to-the-minute twist from A-B this year is a cell-phone-centric experiment called "Apologybot" developed by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners/San Francisco. A group of cell-phone users will be sent a text message after each A-B commercial airs on the Super Bowl, and they will be asked for their reaction to the spot.


26 January, 2007