Advertisements during the Super Bowl are the most expensive in the world. Budweiser used a one minute spot to poke fun at craft beer and craft beer drinkers, ridiculing their alleged tendency to dissect and sip beers rather than drink them. The advert also mocked the propensity of craft beer drinkers to have beards and their seeming penchant for obscure styles such as “pumpkin peach ales”. Sadly, that beer does actually exist.
Reaction from the craft beer community was mixed but largely negative.
Canadian beer writer Stephen Beaumont said Anheuser Busch’s “craft-bashing strategy is nothing new. It was attempted back in the 1990’s by Miller with their ‘Time for a Good Old Macrobrew’ ads for MGD [Miller’s Genuine Draught], and it failed then. (MGD was then the 6th best selling beer in the U.S. and Miller’s second-best seller; it is now almost irrelevant.) Budweiser has for years been experiencing a steady slide in sales volume and I find it doubtful that a single ad poking fun at craft beer and craft beer drinkers is going to change that. The ad wasn’t an insult, as so many seem to be feeling today. It was a desperation move. Laugh and move on.”
Budweiser’s other ad, featuring a cute puppy rescued by heroic horses, was received much better even though it really had nothing to do with the beer.
