Pacific Northwest craft breweries rebut Budweiser ad; W+K’s commercials draw mixed reactions; racy Carl’s Jr. spot misses Beaver State; Nationwide ad misses the mark.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The hangover is gone, the food coma has relented, but there are still residual effects for companies that bought Super Bowl ad space.
Budweiser unveiled an ad that ruffled many in the Northwest when it took a not-so-subtle shot at craft breweries. The ad appealed to those who find craft beers to be the work of smarmy hipsters as it said: “Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale, we’ll be brewing us some golden suds.”
The aggressive tone of the ad was confusing to many as Anheuser-Busch InBev just bought Bend-based 10 Barrel Brewing Co. last year and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing Co. in January.
The Bend Bulletin reported on the precarious situation the breweries find themselves in:
10 Barrel Brewing Co. — founded in Bend and bought last year by Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch — posted an apparent comeback with a hint of tongue in cheek Monday on its Facebook page: “Alright … we slept on it all night and the decision has been made. Our next small batch beer is DEFINITELY going to be a Pumpkin Peach Ale!” …
Seattle-based Elysian Brewing Co., in January also sold to Anheuser-Busch, the U.S. arm of Belgium-based brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, actually produced a pecan peach pumpkin ale last fall called Gourdgia on My Mind. Elysian co-founder Dick Cantwell on Monday morning emailed the Chicago Tribune: “I find it kind of incredible that ABI would be so tone-deaf as to pretty directly (even if unwittingly) call out one of the breweries they have recently acquired, even as that brewery is dealing with the anger of the beer community in reaction to the sale,” the Tribune reported. “It doesn’t make our job any easier,” the newspaper quoted Cantwell as saying.
Wieden+Kennedy, of Portland, had three ads during the big game, and they were greeted with varying results, the Portland Business Journal reports:
- The three ads created by Portland’s Wieden+Kennedy office ranked all over the map in terms of USA Today’s Ad Meter. The “Make It Happy” Coca-Cola ad landed in the No. 8 spot, out of 61 ads overall. Wieden’s Weight Watchers ad ranked 41st while a Squarespace spot starring Jeff Bridges was 58th.
- In terms of reviews posted by Advertising Age’s Ken Wheaton, the Wieden+Kennedy ads for Weight Watchers and Coke each landed three star (out of four) ratings while the Squarespace ad merited a two-and-a-half.
The most controversial ad shown during the Super Bowl, a spot for Carl’s Jr. in which a model appears to be naked walking through a market was shown only in the Southern Oregon market.
OregonLive.com reported on the ad not showing in most of Oregon:
Carl’s Jr. had said previously that the commercial would be broadcast on the West Coast only. In fact, Ryan repeated that statement Monday morning, though corrected it to Medford-Klamath Falls by late Monday afternoon.
Asked if there were any other Northwest markets where the commercial was not shown, Ryan replied, “I’ve requested more information and will forward when available.”
There is currently no statement from the company as to why the state was skipped over.
The one thing that almost everyone on the nation agreed on was that Nationwide’s ploy of using dead children to sell insurance was misguided at best.
The Statesman Journal’s Laura Fosmire reported on an educator’s opinion that maybe the ad wasn’t a total failure.
“If the conversation moves from the ‘depressing Nationwide ad’ to the ‘Nationwide safety ad,’ then they may be on to something,” said Adam Torgerson, director of media relations at Willamette University.
The ad certainly accomplished one thing, he added — jump-starting a conversation: “As a marketer, I’d say that there are metrics available to track this,” he said. “Did people visit the safety website per the company’s call to action? If so, they can certainly argue it was successful. They can use (this) data to advance the message that they value safety and have saved lives with this ad.”
But regardless of how well the ad is viewed as a marketing ploy, it was widely panned by viewers on Twitter.
Remember when @Nationwide wanted us to think about kids dying during the Super Bowl yesterday.
— Brett Anderson (@BAnderson_30) February 2, 2015
So, in conclusion:
Budweiser shows how not to appeal to Oregonians by bashing craft beer while Nationwide shows how not to appeal to anyone. #SuperBowlAds
— Jacob Palmer (@JPalm___) February 2, 2015
