sjbooher: Who knew I would like this? I don’t really like Conan, but this is pretty funny. Of course, the Conan parts do not make me laugh, but the pedestrian at the end doing the robot and imitating Conan, that makes me laugh. But I still don’t know what this ad is for. Is it for Conan? C for Conan.
jtherkal: Oh, wait, you mean everyone saw that ad? Even though they said it would only be in Sweden? Conan should have kept not doing ads. F.
jtherkal: Violence is never the answer. I guess the challenge with beer commercials is that you can pretty much do anything, so unless you really hit it out of the park it feels sort of average. I like “does my pen have writability?” But overall I think drinkability is about the dumbest claim since Coors Light started selling on a platform of “cold.” C-.
sjbooher: Wow. To start off the festivities we are treated to an ad which is a completely an unoriginal idea, as it spoofs another commercial. I think the new saying is “epic fail”. F.
jtherkal: Dude. This idea had enough legs to be good for about one commercial. Dude. I think this was about the third or fourth version. Dude. And while it’s still pretty entertaining and true, it’s starting to get old. Dude. And a little annoying. Dude. Know when to say when. Dude. Dude. Dude. Dude. C.
sjbooher: Dude. I generally lean anti-dude… except in the Hip-Hop slang context, used when describing another person, as in: “that dude can hit the 3″. So the fact that I sort of liked the original of this campaign, was a bit of an upset. My colleague has nailed this one. While there is definitely something to be said for incessantly hitting the consumer of the head with the same idea, I just realized that as many times as I have seen or heard these spots, I could have maybe guessed it was for a Budweiser product, but I could not have had told you which one. Maybe the guy should have been saying “Bud”. Bud. Bud. Bud. C-.
Bud Light came strong, or at least frequent, for the Super Bowl, and it was largely a trainwreck of advertising missteps, with only 2 above average grades.
The Mouth:
Going with quantity over quality was clearly the strategy here. Bud Light serves up a little of everything, so one of these is probably bound to be funny to most groups of people. For the most part, I thought this was a pretty weak effort this year.
Breathe Fire — C+
This is an attempt at a lame joke that has nothing to do with the product. What in the hell does breathing fire have to do with drinking beer unless you’re talking about the heartburn that comes after drinking nasty-ass Bud Light? Spots like these only work if they’re funny, and this is not. At least they do a good job of branding, as far as mentioning and picturing the product up front.
The Mouth:
This concept has the potential to be really funny, as is displayed in the dog talking about sausages commercial. This one isn’t that great, although I’m sure if they thought harder about it, they could have come up with a funnier situation for breathing fire. I’ll agree with C+.
Wine and Cheese Party — B
Now this one is clever and funny. Good job.
The Mouth:
Hard to argue with that. This one is dead on for the target audience. Man no like silly wine and cheese parties. B+.
Carlos Mencia — Foreign accent — F
One word: lazy. “Hey, let’s show another of those Carlos Mencia spots.” “Ehh, what the hell?” A) This campaign wasn’t funny the first time around. B) I’m not sure how much star power Mencia actually has. C) The humor is lowbrow, if not offensive. Horrible.
The Mouth:
Yeah, this one is bad. I actually think I like the old one, where he’s teaching the class to say “Give me a Bud Light.” But this one is just plain lame. Although I will say, even though I don’t ever watch his show or anything he does, Carlos Mencia seems to have some star power. D-, because I like the little fellow who says Buuude Light.
Cavemen — D+
Why are those Geicko guys drinking Bud Light now? Umm… I think ya’ll missed the memo: Cavemen are played out! Unoriginal and not funny.
The Mouth:
Oh, wait, I get it. They invent the wheel, then they use it to carry the beer instead of rolling it. Dumb, stupid and bad. I guess someone at Budweiser issued a mandate. “Those Geiko cavemen are popular, we need a caveman commercial in the Super Bowl this year. Cavemen are all the rage right now.” No, they’re not. F.
Flying man — D-
See the above review of “Breathe fire”. And honestly… he’s alive in the terminal later on? We’re not that dumb.
The Mouth:
I thought this was even worse than the fire breathing one. Is it even possible that they could have come up with something MORE predictable than having the guy get hit by a plane? I really don’t think so. On Family Fued, if they showed the first half of this commercial and asked how it would end, there would only be one answer. 100 out of 100 people would guess “guy gets hit by plane.” Ding ding ding ding. With the freedom that beer advertising gives creatives, whoever is responsible for this spot should be forced to write salesgenie.com spots for the rest of his natural born life. Double F.
Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon — A
This cross-promotional ad for Ferrell’s upcoming movie, Semi-Pro, is a winner. In character, Ferrell is his usual funny self, dropping Bud Light-related one-liners. Good.
The Mouth:
Just Will doing what Will does. “A magical blend of barley, hops and delicious alcohol.” Delicious indeed. A.
I could do without the corny squirrel line at the end, but that dog saying “sausages” over and over again kills me. Dogs love sausages. After thinking about it though, they maybe borrowed from this classic: