“This is Budweiser, This is Beer.” An Open Letter to the Geniuses Who Created this Ad
To view the ad go here.
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
One Busch Place
St. Louis, MO 63118Dick Rogers, President and CEO
DDB Advertising North America
200 East Randolph
Chicago, IL 60601
Dear Budweiser and Dick,
Please, make it stop. I beg you.
Now, I realize the end of the world is nigh. This is one of several truths that have become apparent to me since the first time I saw your commercial entitled Anthem during week one of the NFL football season. Now the playoffs are here, and I am still seeing and hearing Anthem. So before polar caps melt, seas boil, stars drip with blood, Earth cracks along the Equator, or Jessica Simpson says something smart, I need you to pull this commercial from the air.
Several things about Anthem make me weep for our future, and I will be plain about them with you.
1.) The hook to the song/commercial: “This is Budweiser/This is beer.” DDB North America is a large respectable (as much as ad agencies can be) firm. I’m sure the creative talent you employ (even in Chicago) can do better than this. I am certain the first time this commercial aired during week one of the NFL football season, and the first time millions of happy, football-watching minions heard this commercial, one unanimous response was hurled back at the television. Did you hear us in your offices in Chicago? Did you, Anheuser-Busch, hear us in your grain elevators in St. Louis? You should have. It was two words, but sang like a mini-anthem from Phoenix to Seattle to Green Bay to Buffalo to Charlotte to Tampa Bay. I think I yelled it the loudest.
“No Shit.”
Is there really confusion about the nature of your product? Are people often at a loss when forced to classify the liquid you so meticulously bottle and stamp with Born on Dating? Do grocery stores still mistakenly put your product in the dairy section next to rice milk? Have those silly theories about your product actually coming from Clydesdales begun to hurt your bottom line? Did you think America hasn’t been paying attention? Or maybe you thought we forgot what it was you actually made. More probable is that you believe the demographic you are targeting, football fans, is really that dense. And this is what distresses me most.
It is perhaps a chicken-or-the-egg question. Do you give us this excuse for an advertisement because we are drooling Neanderthals? Or. Are we drooling Neanderthals because you give us this excuse for an advertisement? Play it safe. Give us a television spot that isn’t reduced to the most elementary syllogism in logic: A is A, so A is A. Please, give us something harder. If we get it wrong, then we don’t deserve to drink your beer, but at least you’ll know you’ve tried.
You could, if you so choose, even say: “This is Budweiser/This is Good Beer.” See how that small nuance makes the commercial, while still not a strong commercial, a bit more substantial than the present declarative sentence on which you hang your advertising hat? Perhaps, legally, you aren’t allowed to say that because it’s not true. Your beer is not good. Maybe your ad was better before the pesky Legal Department got involved. This is simply the result of the lawyers having their way. If this is the case, please forward my letter on to the suits down in Legal. As it stands, your declaration sounds as convincing as the following slogans:
This is West Virginia/ This is a state to the west of Virginia.
This is Kraft./This is cheese (processed food product).
This is Canada./ This is still a country and has lots of parking.
This is the Church of Christian Science./This is technically a religion too
2.) You call your ad spot Anthem. You make beer, not even very good beer, and you have an anthem? That’s a little, um, insane. Do your employees have to sing it every morning before they pledge allegiance to the Anheuser-Busch flag? Is Budweiser trying to stir up some type of secessionist, beer militia? In your utopist, beer-inspired future, will St. Louis be the new capital? Will the leader of this fledgeling republic be Augustus Busch? Caesar Augustus Busch?
Let me break it down. At the beginning of the ad, the crappy, generic rock starts playing softly, and we see quick shots of a cowboy and his horse (stereotype), an Asian man at his laptop (stereotype much?), an African-American policewoman directing traffic (stereotype), nothing (were there no available images of Hassidic jewelers counting money?), a sunset over a large city, a fly over of a bucolic small town (red state), a mail box (what says beer like the mail?), freshly hung laundry flapping in the breeze, a young man in a white t-shirt and a red hat talking to an old man in a white t-shirt and a red hat over a white fence (I do tear up a bit for .05 seconds), a housetop party, a subway, a garage band, a football team, people tail-gating wearing the same colors as the football team, a bus driver (I couldn’t find her can of Budweiser, but I’m sure it’s hidden in the picture), rail workers, more cops…this time on horseback(cops and firemen make it into more beer commercials than beer, which makes you wonder who needs the breathalyzers), a man in a tie and a dress shirt next to a man in a flannel shirt at a bar (both drinking some type of new wheat and grain based drink that Budweiser has invented), guys sitting on Harley’s (”Drink our beer, then go sit on your bike, but please don’t drive off and terrorize Rolling Stones fans” isn’t as catchy), then we see the city of St. Louis. This ad is so sweet and apple pie that it hurts my teeth. It also hurts my hand, but that’s because I shove sharp objects into the flesh off my hand to distract myself from the pain. Still, I don’t mind a little sappy Americana. But then I hear the words:
“This is what I call mine/This is true/This is Budweiser.”
That’s when the music cranks up, and the proud Die Zeit ohne Beispiel inspired Budweiser images start: grain elevators with the letters B-U-D-W-E-I-S-E-R painted in Budweiser’s national colors (red), Clydesdales, cold draft Bud being emptied out on the ground, and Bud’s poster child, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (He is also a spokesperson for Wrangler Jeans. Yep, they still make Wrangler jeans, and they have a spokesperson. Maybe your ad agency could help them out after you get done making a new ad for Budweiser.)
All I wanted to do was watch some football, but instead I am being re-educated by fanatical, conniving brewmeisters. Plus blood is coming from my ears due to a genre of music called “country-rock.”
3.) “This is where I live/This is where I’m from/This is what I believe when the day is done.” This is where I conclude my letter to you. First you dumb it down by stating the obvious, then you try to get us all to drink the Budweiser flavored Kool-Aid, and then you go way out there and equate drinking Budweiser with some type of Kierkegaardian existential leap of faith. “This is what I believe in when the day is done?” You still just make beer, right? Is there something else I should know about? When I contemplate those large questions in life and when I think to myself, “What do I believe in?” I am quite certain Budweiser won’t be one of the top five million or so things that pop into my brain.
In case I have been too negative, let me concede your commercial is catchy. The song sticks in my head. This is not a large accomplishment. I still have Cindi Lauper’s song, True Colors, stuck in my head (and I rarely question my sexuality). That Band-Aid song is still stuck (no pun intended) in my head, but I don’t use Band-Aid Brand (I am a real man, so I use electrical tape and old socks when I get a wound). You also have some gosh-darn nice images in your ad.
But this is the only commercial I have ever seen that manages to shoot too low and too high all at once. This is the only commercial I have ever seen that results immediately in the gnashing of teeth and the putting-on of sack cloth and ashes. Every time I see this commercial, I expect to see in that montage a brief image of fire and Nero playing his violin.
Please, I beg you. Pull this commercial from regular rotation during football games. You could even move it over to Lifetime where nobody will ever see it. Make it stop. You win. It’s beer. I’m not prepared to argue the point. I am at your mercy.
Yours Truly,
Jamie Doom
Doom, great stuff!
Just be happen you don’t live in the place that is still a country and has lots of parking. Up here, taking a beer called Molson Canadian (a pretty stupid name to beginning with, I’m happy I live in Quebec where it’s nowhere to be found) and selling it with the slogan “I am Canadian” (no, I’m not kidding) seems to pass as marketing genius.
Apparently, North Americans show their patriotism to their respective countries by drinking really shitty beer.
I still blame Budweiser for taste nastifying the whole damn brewing industry round these parts.
Comment by Patrick — January 14, 2006 @ 6:27 pm
I read your post and now the song’s stuck in my head. Please make it stop!
Comment by Grant — March 31, 2006 @ 5:31 pm
THIS IS BUDWEISER!!!!!!!!
Comment by Danny G — May 19, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
Wow….you must drink Old Style Huh?
I don’t even drink alcohol and I enjoy the commercial. Yeah, I am of drinking age. I suppose you are against anything that stands as a reflection of your American Heritage or the people that represent this nation too. Let me contact Budweiser so that they can send you a written apology for interupting your precious football game. Your team probably lost too didn’t they? Probably at the fault of this commercial too.
Comment by RRMorgan — June 6, 2006 @ 9:55 am
bro, when u said the “no shit” part i think u misunderstood the commercial.. They intended it to mean “this is what beer should be like.”
Comment by erik — June 8, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
Jamie,
Six months after you wrote your original letter to Dick Rogers, I finally saw your rant. I created the commercial. Wow, you must have Tivo
to dissect it so thoroughly. I’m impressed. Yeah, Anthem is a bit of a throwback to an earlier, more earnest, less ironic time in advertising.
For us, the Anthem spot does a lot of heavy lifting. And allows us to also offer up spots like our Clydesdale “Streaker” spot that finished #1 on the Super Bowl voting by aol.com.
And our “American Dream” Clydesdale spot, also on the Super Bowl, that finished #2 on the official USA Today Admeter Poll.
I admit, it’s corny and straightforward - and it’s a long way from the old “True” work that used to win us a lot of Cannes Lions - also from DDB Chicago.
Hopefully the next round of “anthem” type spots from us will evolve the campaign so it’s a bit more pleasing. Less in your face. That should be breaking in about a month. Not funny, still heartfelt, but, like I said, less in your face.
Keep up the analysis.
KT
Comment by kt — June 21, 2006 @ 10:33 pm
your all stupid that song is great
Comment by mattix — July 21, 2006 @ 4:15 pm
dude- your nuts budweiser is the KING of beers!!! and b y the way that anthem is AMAZING!!!!
Comment by chantel — September 10, 2006 @ 7:42 pm
[...] Well friend, perhaps you have asked me this very question, or wondered it, or more likely you don’t care and arrived at this website after Googling the words “Budweiser+fun+kill+chickens” which is how I get most of my traffic, since I rarely update. (In the future I will post about the people who were upset about my “This is Budweiser; This Is Beer” post. I digress. But let us just say these people didn’t just leave comments, they E-mailed me about my “un-American” disregard for Budweiser and the commercial that promotes it.) Well a good part of my day is spent doing absolutely nothing but looking in the direction of the ocean. [...]
Pingback by jamie doom » Sunrise, Sunset — November 29, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Another moron bitchin about some of the great things in this country, like FREEDOM OF SPEECH idiot.Its a commercial, get over it and yourself. Dont like it…go live elsewhere. Period.
Comment by Joe — December 1, 2006 @ 5:27 pm
Hahaha, you have to be the biggest/useless pimple-faced loser I’ve come across on the net in 12 years. Beer elitists are no “cooler” than wine drinkers. They’re just as lame. Fucking shutup already. As for your retarded article that I can’t believe anyone would take the time to write, Budweiser still uses the anthem. Unfortunately for you, as many people complain about it, twice as many people give it positive feedback. So nice try. What the hell were trying to accomplish anyway? How about using your surplus of time for something useful.. I only wish your friend (because you probably only have one) could see this shit. Hilarious
Comment by JTLM — December 16, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
I guess you’ve never seen my rendition. I sing the F#%K outta this song!
Comment by Little Mic — December 19, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
I can understand your disliking for this commercial, everyone has things that bug them. However the aim of a TV commercial is to heighten consumer awareness. You might wonder why Budweiser, who has the largest market share of beer sales in the United States, needs to raise brand awareness. The main reason for this ad is to make it memorable. As you mentioned in your letter several ads have gotten “stuck” in your head. With the high volume of information that consumers must deal with everyday it is becoming harder and harder for companies to have their advertisments stand out above the rest. Budweiser has managed to achieve this with this particular ad.
Comment by Shawn — January 3, 2007 @ 5:14 am
I have to say, I really enjoy the Budweiser “Anthem” ad campaign. The concept that their brew is so bad that they actually need to convince people it’s beer is just too funny to me. “This is beer! We swear! No, seriously!”
Gwahahaha.
Comment by Stephen Touset — April 9, 2007 @ 8:58 am
The author of this letter, Jamie Doom, apparently doesn’t realize he is a blithering DUMMASS, but chooses obnoxious condescension to insult and critique an ad campaign that was meant to appeal to the BILLIONS of Budweisers customers.
The song was meant to MOTIVATE and UPLIFT the viewer’s and listener’s senses so they’d think of Budweiser in a positive and confident manner.
The music all by itself is driving energetic rock, but when you add vocals that build from a calm set into a powerful and driving hook, you get a VERY positive and motivating song that sells itself and the product.
Jamie is apparently too shallow, ignorant, uneducated, and STUPID to understand this, because the point of the ad campaign flew right over his arrogantly ignorant head.
Comment by barry — May 24, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
Barry, the campaign was only run in America, and there are only about 300 million people living here. So you are wrong about that even though you did use all caps like it was correct.
Next, this is my blog. Obviously it’s my opinion, which I have a right to state. And you have a right to disagree which is why I approved your comment. You find the song motivating and uplifting.The commercial makes you think of Budweiser in a positive and confident manner. So what. All that means is that I have better taste than have. You think the music is driving, energetic rock. Again you are wrong. It’s boring crap. How do I know? Well it’s on a Budweiser commercial for starters.
You then call me a lot of names. That’s fine too except that you start sounding like a 12 year old there at the end. So I don’t know if I should bother replying to your comment. But maybe you are right. I am too shallow to understand the deeper nuances and workings of a Budweiser commercial.If that is the case, um, don’t come to my website anymore. Instead do whatever it is you do there in Herndon, VA.
Comment by Doom — May 24, 2007 @ 9:13 pm
AWESOME, dude… take ‘em apart, Rex! Those lowly [not-even] ‘beer’-makers… I thot yer remarks dissecting the ‘lyrics’ of the commercial were incisive and very funny - talk about an easy target - a ‘beer’ commercial trying to appeal to a broad swathe of ‘Merikins - that’s a pretty low[-ly] common demon-inator/denominator… there’s alot to poke fun at (incl. all that nonsense about juxtaposing any given product with [ostensibly] patriotism-inspiring imagery; the very fact that said co. does not even produce beer [s. Purity Law of 1516 of Germany]) - I’m so glad I live in Berlin, Germany - there are so many varieties of well-made beer here - the U.S. is a 3rd world country beer-wise - or maybe more like the USSR back in the Soviet era - having 1 [quasi-]state monopoly that produces this insipid concoction everyone ‘has’ to drink… no thanks/Nein Danke! :))
Comment by Timothy Thorson — June 15, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Jamie, you suck. That commercial kicks ass and is a great example of the greatest beer made. The verses are almost as brilliant as the beer. I don’t understand how you or anybody else can say it is a shitty beer. Screw you.
Comment by Ben — June 24, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
Bud kicks ass, there song is simply a marketing ploy. It reinforces the fact that Budweiser makes good beer, and repeating the commercial makes it stay there. I sing the song all the time, its catchy. They have given the song a lot more thought than you have.
Comment by miguel — June 29, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
I think your remark about making emplayees sing the anthem is retarded! I work for Bud as a delivery driver, and i have never worked for a better company. They dont get stupid with their employees like alot of other major corporations. AND THE ANTHEM ROCKS!!!! ITS MY RINGTONE ON BOTH MY COMPANY AND PERSONAL CELL PHONES AND IS THERE TO STAY!!!
Comment by Ross — July 5, 2007 @ 10:41 pm
I for one thank you for this post. Both the commercial and some of the comments posted here are sadly hilarious.
Comment by Robertson Allen — August 12, 2008 @ 8:53 pm