Posted by Mike Bawden under Advertising, Much Ado About Marketing
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On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Anheuser-Busch InBev NV is trying to reverse a slide in market share for Bud Light by ginning up another 15 ads for the brand. All this in response to the first drop in market share for Bud’s younger sibling in over 25 years.
The ads are set to break when the NFL football season kicks off. The ads will continue to make people laugh, concentrating on bringing back the humor associated with the brand over the past generation. What does this mean for the often-lame “Drinkability” campaign? According to the article, it sounds like DDB is planning on sticking with the theme but will freshen things up a bit.
The ads will refine the company’s “Drinkability” campaign — which sought to persuade drinkers that Bud Light is neither too heavy nor too light in taste — that began last year and has struggled to gain traction.
Some creative executives at Omnicom Group‘s DDB Worldwide, an ad agency working on Bud Light, struggled with the “Drinkability” strategy while creating this year’s Super Bowl commercials, finding it difficult to fit in the “Drinkability” message without sacrificing humor, according to a person familiar with the matter.
So, don’t plan on the return of Spuds McKenzie – but for those of you who are jonesing for some classic Bud Light moments, check out this link.
Bill Bernbach may have passed away from leukemia in 1982, but the work produced by DDB under his supervision in the 60′s and 70′s is the epitome of great advertising. While every student of the business remembers the “Think Small” campaign for VW, we often forget how counter-intuitive VW’s entire positioning was to the automotive market of the day.
This classic ad explains why VW didn’t discount the Beatle the way other car manufacturers slashed prices to move stock each model year.
Politically incorrect – maybe so – but still another in the line of classic VW ads from Bill Bernbach’s book.
Forty is too young to die.
I can say that now, as I’m all of forty-five. Last week’s news of the death of DDB’s creative chief, Paul Tilley, hit home for me. Here’s a guy about my age with a bunch of kids and a wife and (apparently) all the upside in the world.
But with the upside comes pressure. And with the pressure, a darkness.
Ad Age had a very solid piece on Paul Tilley and the reactions to his suicide. You can read it here.
One line in the Ad Age piece referred to a New York Post story (found here) that referred to the “Blogs of Death” – specifically AgencySpy and AdScam. The “Blogs of Death” epithet is more the result of bad headline writing than any claim staked by either blog.
Do yourself a favor. Don’t get caught up in the self-indulgent introspection of trying to figure out who’s to blame for this tragedy. It won’t bring Paul Tilley back and it won’t make life any easier for his wife and kids. Just morn the all-too-soon loss of a husband and father who, as it just so happens, was a creative director that did some excellent work.
Godspeed, Paul Tilley.
