People and Pop Culture
Closing Shot: Bud’s big game
Thirty years ago, Anheuser-Busch rolled out Bud Bowl, one of the most iconic advertising campaigns in Super Bowl history. The toast-worthy effort sold plenty of beer and just as importantly further solidified A-B’s role in pop culture.
The first Bud Bowl started Bud Light’s ascension to the top of U.S. beer consumption.
In the mid-1980s, Bud Light was a nascent brand and Anheuser-Busch and Miller were pretty much longneck and neck in overall U.S. market share.
The wildly popular Miller Lite, launched about a decade earlier, had shown the potential of the light beer market. A-B knew Bud Light needed a grander stage so ad agency D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles pitched an idea: Why not have Budweiser and Bud Light play in a football game and show the spots during the Super Bowl?
A-B bit immediately and the planning started. On Jan. 22, 1989, Bud Bowl made its debut during Super Bowl XXIII.
“The philosophy was we wanted to start making ourselves feel bigger to the customer, which is ironic, because today everyone wants to come across as smaller with [microbrews],” said Tony Ponturo, the longtime sports marketing chief for A-B who is now an executive with Turnkey Intelligence.
Miller had more than a head start at the time in the light beer category. It also had rights to the Super Bowl logo, a huge advantage with retail displays in the run-up to the game.
“The Bud Bowl was about exciting retailers and wholesalers, and having our own trademark as a competition to the Super Bowl logo that our competition had,” Ponturo said. “We could build displays, we could have creative around it and we could tell our whole story.”
Next up was a meeting with NBC, which carried Super Bowl XXIII.
“We told them we wanted to tell this story, we needed multiple commercial units to do it, and we needed to be the only beer brand in the broadcast,” Ponturo said.
NBC told A-B that the brewer would need to buy five minutes of commercial time to be the exclusive beer advertiser. That translated to $7.5 million. Anheuser-Busch has maintained that advertising exclusivity every Super Bowl since then.
Bud Bowl spots were spread throughout the telecast, as the beers battled over a timeline similar to the big game itself. The voices of Bob Costas and Paul Maguire were used to call the action.
“I think customers generally like it if you don’t take yourself too seriously as a brand,” Ponturo said. “Humor always worked for us.”
Bud Light would laugh last, using such campaigns to become the top-selling beer brand in the U.S. As for Bud Bowl, it would become a piece of pop culture, earning parodies by the likes of “The Simpsons” and “Beavis and Butthead.” It’s the same buzz-worthy quality that over the years made “What’s up,” “Yes I am” and “I love you man” part of the nation’s vernacular.
“You high five when you see that because you realize that it’s clearly cut through,” Ponturo said. “You learn that when people start to say it as part of their rap, then you have won the day.”
Bud Bowl rolled on for seven more installments, ending with Bud Bowl 8 in 1997. For the record, Budweiser finished with a 6-2 record against Bud Light. But just like a weekend with your buddies, who’s counting anyway?
