A Highly Respectable Message from Budweiser

Sorry, I was distracted.

 

I was not making an argument at all, actually. I was merely stating some observations I thought to be relevant to the discussion. FWIW, I'm strongly against drinking and driving, because as you detail, there is certainly a quantifiable risk to driving under the influence. I just object to people thinking it's as simple as taking a reading. Mind you, this is all in the hypothetical. In a legal setting, many important factors in relation to this cannot be quantified, therefore, they are useless in that setting. For example, one could be in an accident with a certain BAC, but that could be completely irrelevant to the crash. The issue is, it cannot be proven. There is no empirical proof to suggest there was another reason for the accident, therefore the BAC is completely damning.

 

What I haven't missed is the marked reduction in accidents related to drunk driving over the years. It used to be every 15 minutes. Now its like every hour or something. That's progress-- and it is due in no small part to efforts like this from increasingly varied sources reaching broader audiences.

During this same period, people still have gotten drunk. Binge drinking, party drinking, bar drinking, and dancing in a club holding a budweiser =/= drunk driving. I know because I've done all those things, and not driven drunk. I don't drive drunk because I've seen it ruin lives, like my cousin whose face looks very different now because of his extensive reconstructive surgery, or my friend who killed her best friend in her passenger seat. Also, because I've heard of how stupid and damaging it is in messages like this.

Really, I don't get the vitriol to a company advocating safe practices in their advertising. After all, they want their customers to live long enough to buy more, don't they?

 

Regardless of who makes the commercial or statement about being responsible drinkers, it is up to each of us to be that responsible drinker.

 

Keeping your eyes on the road?

 

It is challenging indeed!

 

I love it.

 

AB management's primary goal is to maximize value on a quarterly basis to their owners: the shareholders. The business metrics here are: stock price value and dividend amounts. In order to maximize shareholder value the internal metrics of revenue, sales, profits, etc. need to be maximized. In order to achieve all of these goals AB strongly wants consumers to purchase more of their product; in other words they want more people buying 30 packs of product like Bud and purchase it more often. An ideal customer for AB is somebody who drinks his or her 30 packs of Bud (or Bud Light or ..) in a short period of time and buy another 30 pack once that 30 pack is gone.

Somebody at AB (the Manager of the Marketing & Sales department?) thinks that the Helen Mirren ad will generate 'good will' which will hopefully result in increased sales.

AB as a corporate entity wants to make money. The owners of AB (the shareholders) also want AB to make money.

 

This type of thing is quite common among alcoholic beverage producers. ABInBev is not alone in having signed up to periodically campaign on behalf of responsible drinking. That is pretty much an alcoholic beverage industry standard--i.e., that some reasonable amount of funding, etc. is devoted to promoting responsible consumption. (The original beverage industry agreement to do this goes back to sometime not long after the repeal of prohibiton. The only breweries I'm aware of who don't seem to promote responsible drinking are a very large number of craft brewers who are quite content to use their websites, etc. to promote their products.)

The only thing I see unique in this ad is the use of a very well known, award winning actress saying things that are consistent with her public statements on other topics.

 

She was drinking a bud so obviously she had about 6 more beers. I hope she called an uber.

 

this backfired bad. I am a gross monsters and nothing gets me going more than having an old british lady call me names.

 

I've been seeing this add, and hearing a variation of it on the radio, consistently since it first aired during the Super Bowl a few years ago. It sounds to me like they want you to drink an excess amount of their products and not drive afterwards.

 

Kinda funny they did it with a touch of English accent to give it an air of superiority....American's seem to think a person instantly knows what they are talking about when it comes to that accent.

Agree with the content, but then again the "Don't drink and drive" campaign has had very little effect, as will this. Biggest scare I have seen is driving with one of those funky license plates that makes one an instant cop magnet. Just saying.

 

I 100% agree with that sentiment.

Cheers!

 

You are giving viewers of what's basically the Madi Gras of the biggest party accociated sport in America way too much credit. Between the halftime shows and the crazy ads, intellectual self reflecting is for another day, you party pooper. When you see a bunch of cars in my driveway Sunday, keep on going....

 

Aside from the shareholder bit, craft breweries have the same goal. They usually come in 24 packs though(which for 16oz cans ends up being a 32 pack). Some even print "drink now don't age" and similar expressions.

 

would you consider it a PR gimmick if a craft brewery made this commercial?

 

But do not readily dismiss the "shareholder bit" aspect. A privately owned company (e.g., Sierra Nevada) has significantly more leeway is making business decisions (e.g., advertising budget, what types of advertising, etc.) since there is only one owner. In contrast a publicly owned business has many owners that the business is beholden to.

Cheers!

 

I can relate to the George Thorogood song "I drink alone" for numerous reasons, obviously. ...

 

Probably. It would also be a colossal waste of money for a craft brewery to make that commercial.

What do you honestly think they're trying to accomplish? Was there someone sitting at home that was about to go out for a nice drunk drive but saw that commercial and realized that they shouldn't?