The concept of “ambush marketing” is quite tricky and, in some ways, relatively brilliant. Essentially, it is a marketing campaign developed by a non-sponsor company that interferes with an event sponsored exclusively by a competitor. Major sporting events, such as the Olympics, have fallen prey to these gorilla tactics in the past. The bigger the event, the more money involved, the bigger the deal.

“Events like the Olympics and the World Cup are hugely expensive to put on, so they need big-money sponsors and this in turn means that the organizers must protect aggressively against ambush marketing,” — Phillip Johnson, a visiting senior fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. “But this means there is potentially huge exposure for anyone who manages to outwit them.” Continue Reading »

Yes, it’s Super Bowl beer commercial season, which basically means Bud Light commercials. Here are some classics to back-up the rest of your Super Bowl experience. I’m officially pulling for the Saints. New Orleans has a hell of a beverage culture that would get a big boost from a Saints Super Bowl win. Continue Reading »

Sgt. Pepper is to concept albums as the Budweiser Frogs are to concept advertising. This campaign was EPIC. At the center were three frogs (they do kind of look like toads though) named “Bud” “Weis” and “Er”. The ad campaign debuted during the 1995 Super Bowl (49ers dominated).
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It is official, Anheuser-Busch and InBev and are merging into, wait for it, Anheuser-Busch InBev, making them the largest brewing company in the world, and one of the top five largest consumer products companies in the world. I suspect it is Anheuser-Busch’s control of the “Chelada” brand that tipped the scales of this merger into a capitalistic orgasm. Now the new super company will control over 100 brands including Budweiser, Michelob, Bass, Beck’s, Grolsch, Hoegaarden, Stella Artois, Rolling Rock, Busch, Bacardi Ice, and my personal favorite, Hurricane Ice Malt Liquor. Continue Reading »