Bud Light is sparing no expense to build buzz for its Super Bowl ads this year. It's hosting a "brand hotel" in New Orleans, the Bud Light Hotel, where it plans to host EA Sports's "Madden Bowl" after the hotel's opening on Thursday, January 31. The beer giant is also leaning hard on social media, funding concerts on MySpace, and dedicating various hashtags to its products. The debut of "brand extension" beer Budweiser Black Crown, a "golden amber lager" aimed at the craft-beer drinker, will bear the hashtag #tasteis.
#herewego, meanwhile, is the hashtag for both of the famous original Bud Light's Super Bowl spots -- "Lucky," teased above, and "Journey." Both the ads will mark the end of the popular "Superstitions" campaign, which ran throughout the NFL season and depicted the kooky good-luck rituals of die-hard fans across the league. "Lucky" and "Journey" take place in New Orleans, giving Bud Light that handy tie-in with the big event; "Lucky" appears to involve the lugging of a favorite easy chair (loaded up with Bud Lights) into the stadium, but we'll all have to see.
Why two ads, when the most popular beer in the country only ran one during Super Bowl 2012? Bud Light is doubling down on in-game ad space in 2013, in part, to maintain market share, which has remained flat over the last year. But Anheuser-Busch is also trying to regain dominance for the ads themselves. After a run of culturally dominant ads in the '90s, including the Budweiser frogs and the 2000 "Wassup?" spots, the Bud ad brand slipped somewhat later in the aughts, while watching other brands like VW win the night with ads like "The Force."
The original "Wassup?" ad is still pretty good, you guys:
What's your all-time favorite Bud or Bud Light ad? Do you think 2013 is the year the beer brand returns to the top of the ad heap?
The San Francisco 49ers will take on the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII, which airs Sunday 2/3 at 6:30 PM on CBS.
