Brand
Budweiser ads
Budweiser's best ads, from Bud Bowl to "Whassup?" and "Puppy Love": Super Bowl spectacle, recurring characters and the Clydesdales.
All ads
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2022Bring Home the Bud
Two days before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, organisers banned beer sales at the stadiums, leaving official sponsor Budweiser with a warehouse of…
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2014Puppy Love
A Labrador puppy has fallen for a Clydesdale, and even after it is adopted it keeps coming back home to the horse.
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2002Respect
Five months after September 11, the Budweiser Clydesdales leave their stables, travel through snowy countryside and over the Brooklyn Bridge, then…
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1999Whassup?
Proof that advertising can borrow culture honestly instead of manufacturing it.
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1995Frogs
Three frogs on a swamp log croak one syllable each — "Bud," "weis," "er" — until the croaks sync into the brand name.
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1989Bud Bowl
Anheuser-Busch turned Super Bowl XXIII, on January 22, 1989, into a game within the game.
Budweiser’s advertising
Budweiser's best work is largely a Super Bowl story. With Bud Bowl in 1989, Anheuser-Busch turned the game into a game within the game: longneck bottles in tiny helmets played out a match across a run of stop-motion spots, and the brewer made itself the broadcast's only beer advertiser, an exclusivity it kept for three decades.
Recurring characters are a habit. Frogs did nothing but croak the brand name, yet the frogs became regulars, later joined by the scheming lizards Louie and Frank. Whassup? licensed a real short film and kept its real cast of friends, and the greeting spread even to countries where Budweiser wasn't sold.
The Clydesdales carry the brand's emotional work. Respect showed them bowing towards the space where the towers had stood, five months after September 11. It aired only once, so the restraint became part of the message. Puppy Love paired a Clydesdale with a Labrador puppy and was released on YouTube days before the game.
The 2022 World Cup called for a different skill. When beer sales were banned at the stadiums, Bring Home the Bud promised the unsold stock to the winning country and turned a sponsorship setback into a running game at the speed of the news.