Dive Brief:
- Bud Light received major backlash over a tagline that appeared on some of its beer bottles reading, "The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.”
- The phrase was meant to be part of the brand's #UpForWhatever campaign that seems to be geared towards a younger, male demographic.
- After a wave of negative responses on Twitter, Reddit, and other social media sites, Anheuser-Busch, which owns Bud Light, apologized for the slogan in a tweet, saying “We missed the mark on a new Bud Light bottle, and we regret it.”
Dive Insight:
It is difficult to grasp why Bud Light would use the suggestive phrase after past public controversy. Perhaps the company knew there would be backlash and went ahead with the slogan anyway, hoping its target audience would still find it funny.
The brand was in hot water earlier this year for a tweet, which eventually was deleted, encouraging people to pinch others who weren't wearing green for St. Patrick's Day, and to pinch those who weren't #UpForWhatever.
Bud Light also encountered a PR nightmare last year after its Whatever, USA event stranded residents in the middle of Colorado. Bud Light doesn't seem to be deterred, however—it's planning another Whatever, USA event for later this year.