One of 10 Interview Subjects
For more than a decade, Bud Light has been running its “Real Men of Genius” campaign. (Originally it was called “Real American Heroes.”)
Every year it wins big advertising awards — despite my contention that it’s a lame, ineffective campaign.
“Lame” refers to the ultimate brand impact on the targeted consumer, not to the quality of the humor. Whether you or I think the spots are funny is irrelevant.
Unless, of course, you’re a Big Ad Agency that covets awards. Unfortunately, the surest way to win a radio advertising award is to create an entertaining commercial.
“Did it make money for the advertiser?”
Who cares?
Why For Years I’ve Labeled This A Lousy Ad Campaign
Bud Light has done some very good broadcast advertising.
And some lousy advertising.
I contend that the “Real Men of Genius” campaign is lousy because although many people find it entertaining, the entertainment has nothing to do with the advertiser.
You could substitute any product or service for “Bud Light” without weakening the humor — which is the hallmark of a bad “humorous” ad campaign.
Why This Bothers Me So Much
First, I dislike bad advertising, which I consider to be a form of malpractice.
Second, it’s having a harmful effect on the entire radio advertising industry. Each year this campaign is held up as a paragon of effective use of the medium. Other advertisers are encouraged to follow suit with their own “creative” commercials that do nothing to sell the product or service.
But Maybe I’m Wrong?
I know the campaign is a huge waste of the advertiser’s money. But when a friend of mine — a guy who’s real good at creating radio advertising that works — publicly implied that despite my condemnations he thinks it’s “not so bad,” I decided to put it to…
The Test
I took to the mean streets of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles, vowing to find 10 good men, honest and true, who:
1. Fit Bud Light’s target demographic
2. Have heard at least one “Real Men of Genius” commercial.
My question for each of them: “Who is the advertiser?”
For a campaign that’s been running a heavy schedule for over a decade, at least 7 out of the 10 should’ve been able to answer, “Bud Light.”
Here are the results….
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All liked the ads, which is good. And I think breweries in all should feel fine, but I would really like to know the preferred beer brand for the guys you talked to.
I would say that the 3 or 4 people who said either Miller or Corona were definitely bad, HOWEVER, the at least 3 who said ‘Budweiser’ should have gotten it…when you buy brand, you decide whether you want regular or lite beer.. I’m surprised as many people said specifically ‘Bud Lite”… Look at the ‘Jay-Walking’ series on Jay Leno… half of those people don’t know who is President for God’s sake! I get your point, Dan, BUT you know advertising works subliminally as well, and those who said “Budweiser” should have, in my opinion, have been a success, NOT failure. Give me 40% recognition, I’ll call it a success! That’s just me.
realistically, we don’t know what budweiser considers a success. while this campaign maybe cosidered lame to the people looking in, it may not be to budweiser.
most bud ads I’ve heard really focus on the humor of the spot as opposed to branding…a real quick read tag at the end that could be considered a throwaway often is the only identifying part of the spot that says the brand. I’d say let them throw their money if they think they know what they’re doing.
Dan I’m so glad you have raised this. The brand linkage in these ads is tragically weak, even though they are some of the funniest ads on air ever.
But my guess is that Adland is so desperate for good news at the moment, they won’t be able to accept any bad news.
The obvious point is that NO ad is effective if it doesn’t result in positive product recall.
But on a different note… kudos to you, Dan, for showing initiative and doing MOS for some basic research! It’s the sort of marketing stations should deploy: free, simple, in-your-face, and usable on-air moments.
@ Steve: Everyone who said “Budweiser” as their final answer was counted as a “success.”
The people who originally said Budweiser but ended up equivocating — “or Coors,” “or Miller,” etc. — were counted as “failures.”
Similarly, the one person who said “Bud Light,” indicated he didn’t have a lot of confidence in that answer, but still gave that as his final answer was counted as a success.
I’d be interested in seeing the same study repeated with 1,000 interviews…This is a very small focus group…I’d also say that “Budweiser” should be a succesful answer even if they second guess it.
For the record, I think this campaign has more than run its course and hasn’t been funny for at least the last five years. In its heyday, listeners called my classic rock radio station asking for a CD with all the Real Men Of Genius spots.
Dan, I appreciate the fairness in your questioning and agree with you to a degree that the campaign is overrated, but I don’t think this video proves your point.
Because the campaign is 10 years old, I think you need to poll men in the 35-45 age range. I would estimate that at least half of the people in the video were under 30, although I could be wrong.
I think someone needs to have heard the ad more than once. Maybe at least five times? I’ve heard many ads one time and have no idea who the advertiser was. Maybe the spot was lousy or I just wasn’t interested. Again, it’s a 10-year campaign. If someone struggles to even remember the campaign, they probably aren’t in Bud Light’s target audience. I think one person said he heard it once in passing.
Finally, do we know if these guys are beer drinkers? If not, Bud Light probably doesn’t care what they think.
I don’t know if any of these factors would change the results of your study, but I think they could prove or disprove your point more powerfully.
Today, we salute you, Mister Beer Commercial Jingle Singer…it doesn’t matter if the beer brand’s market share moves up, as long as your iconic crooning adds more decorations to the display case at some advertising agency…
Who cares. It took me 10 watches of that commercial with the car full of guys and the killer whale on the pier to remember it was even a TIRE commercial – I thought it was a “Vegas” commercial because the driver says at the end “now that was a batchelor party!”.
You get even 1 guy to remember it was a beer commercial and it has done it’s job. The point is the commercial is “entertaining” you, unlike the usual serious “look how much you need our useless product” ads are.