The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Audrey Kemp, LA Reporter

February 2, 2023 | 5 min read

The American beer brand will use the Super Bowl stage to reintroduce itself to consumers. Behind the move is the first female to lead the largest lager in the industry.

Bud Light will return to the Super Bowl this February flush with a new campaign and brand identity, each emphasizing ”confidence and charisma.”

The in-game spot, titled ‘Hold,’ features actor Miles Teller, known for his role in the dystopian thriller Spiderhead, along with his wife Keleigh and a silver puppy.

In it, Keleigh lounges on a sofa while on hold to customer services. She becomes increasingly annoyed by the repetitive, yet undeniably catchy, hold music emanating from her phone speaker. Miles decides to make light of the moment by cracking open a Bud Light and busting out his signature dance moves. This prompts Keleigh to join in, the two dancing to the all-too-familiar hold music with Bud Lights in-hand.

The spot also ushers in a new platform for the 41-year-old brand: ‘Easy to drink, easy to enjoy.’ The platform includes an all-around brighter look, a newfound confidence and a magnetic spirit that encourages Bud Light fans to choose enjoyment.

The ongoing effort is led by Bud Light’s first-ever female vice-president of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid. When Heinersheid took the helm, she knew Bud Light had a few challenges to overcome. First, it needed to remain at the forefront, despite a rise in competitor categories, such as hard seltzers, in recent years. It also needed to stand out in the big game amid a growing sea of rival brands, after Anheuser-Busch ended its 33 year-streak of Super Bowl advertising exclusivity.

“We needed a new era for Bud Light. We needed to evolve and elevate the brand in order to ensure that this brand continues,” says Heinerscheid. “It was very important for us to be clear on who we are and what we stand for.”

Heinerscheid adds that Bud Light’s new platform was inspired by its origins, as the beer itself was first designed for easy-drinking. This spirit of levity can be seen in Miles and Keleigh, who in the ad decide to make magic out of an otherwise mundane moment.

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Although the Super Bowl spot is humorous, its overall feeling is starkly different from those of previous Bud Light ads. ”Not only was it crucial to know who we are, but embedded in that was an evolution of our tone, from a laugh-out-loud slapstick brand to one of confidence and charisma,” says Heinerscheid. ”Humor is in our DNA but we’ve evolved our approach to it. Now, there’s a little more wit and subtlety … That evolution in humor is an underpinning of how we look, feel and show up.”

It’s a brand of humor, devised in partnership with Bud Light’s new agency partner Anomaly, that consumers will come to know beyond the Super Bowl spot. ”We now have this single, repeatable formula that you’ll see over and over again,” says Heinerscheid. “You’re in a situation that’s very frustrating, you crack open Bud Lights and everything shifts. You choose enjoyment in the face of those [frustrating] moments.”

For all Super Bowl LVII coverage, check out The Drum’s ad scoreboard here. For more, sign up for The Drum’s daily US newsletter here.

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