World’s best ads ever #34: Budweiser’s trio of frogs hits all the right notes
We asked our readers to vote for their favorite commercials of all time. Top creatives from the World Creative Rankings and The Drum’s Judges’ Club then ranked the ads. Now, we bring you the definitive 100 best TV and video ads of all time.
Another iconic Budweiser ad, this time from the 1995 Super Bowl. It may not have featured the glorious and famous Clydesdales, but it does feature a trio of frogs chanting the syllables of the brand’s name in a hypnotic baritone.
This is one of those ads that is so simple in its production and delivery that it would be easy to dismiss it as ineffectual, perhaps even lazy. But its remarkable simplicity has arguably been the key to the ad’s success. Three frogs croaking “Bud”, “Weis” and “Er” is oddly unforgettable, not unlike the brand’s even more iconic ‘Wazzup’ ad, in which an all-male cast of characters gleefully yell “wazzup” at each other for nearly the entire duration of the TV spot.
These are precisely the uncomplicated refrains that are likely to stick in the minds of a beer brand’s audience — particularly one that’s largely comprised of jubilant and perhaps slightly tipsy viewers on the day of the Big Game. (‘Wazzup’ initially aired on a 2020 installment of Monday Night Football and would go on to be inducted in the Clio Hall of Fame years later.)
The idea for the 1995 frog TV spot was hatched in 1994 by Dave Swaine and Michael Smith of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. It was directed by Gore Verbinski, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame.
In 2015, Swaine would tell USA Today: “It’s rare that everything works out so perfectly. Our producer, Chan Hatcher, was exceptional. We were lucky enough to work with now legendary director Gore Verbinski. Even back then, Gore was a visionary, a true master of film. He understood that we wanted the frogs to be as real as possible and not at all cartoony.
“We collaborated with the amazing people at Stan Winston’s studio on the animatronic frog design. They were the same guys that did the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park, among other special effects masterpieces. Truly amazing people. Incredible talent.”
Like the later ‘Wazzup’ campaign, the 1995 ad was inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame. It would also famously be satirized in an episode of The Simpsons — which is, as far as we’re concerned, incontrovertible evidence of its indelible impression upon pop culture.