You don’t have to drink lager, or even drink alcohol, to recognise the commercial below. First released 25 years ago, it remains a superb, funny ad:
The Whassup campaign propelled Budweiser into a different league. It was hugely successful commercially1. It showed that the self-appointed ‘King of Beers’ was not without a sense of humour. And, I’d argue, it opened the door to a far greater representation of Black communities in the US than ever before.
The main interest in it has often been how the key phrase (“Whassup?!”) became such a huge meme. But equally interesting is how it was created in the first place. I discovered recently that the commercial was a remake of a student short film, True, by the director Charles Stone III. Wanna compare them? Here’s the original from 1997:
There are key differences between the two films — apart from the obvious inclusion of bottles of a certain lager. For example, Budweiser’s ad agency, DDB Chicago, wanted to have a multiracial cast, but Stone objected. Moreover, they wanted to have professional actors — and auditioned 80 of them, unsuccessfully — until Stone suggested they use his friends who starred in his short film. Thankfully, the director got his way on both counts.
The campaign launched in December of 1999. Very quickly, Budweiser knew they were onto something big — something that could be cultural rather than just commercial. And like any brand that strikes gold, they’ve tried to replicate its success intermittently ever since.
There’s the grandmas version, with neat little tweaks (instead of “Watching the game,” it’s “Watching a game-show”):
The commercial was never aired. Perhaps Budweiser decided — rightly — that it was cultural appropriation, so kept it on the shelf. Also the ad feels like an unnecessary cover song, hardly adding anything to the original.
However, this 2020 Super Bowl commercial did feel fresh, updating the ad to the era of the smart home:
A cute idea, right? But it’s a co-branded ad — for Budweiser and Uber — and a co-brand can feel confusing. Up until 47 seconds, this is clearly a Bud ad; then it becomes an Uber ad. Eh?!
No matter. There is something pristine about the first version of Whassup. All of which begs the question: for a brand to create a great funny ad, should they just scour film schools for great short films, pay the directors a truckload of money, then remake them?
It’s certainly one way to do it, but it would take a lot of time, money and I dare say a massive dollop of luck. One of the things I do in my work is give a sense of structure to the kind of humour that a brand wants to use, their product needs, and their audiences want to enjoy. To use a tailoring analogy: this means that a brand can make the suit themselves, rather than buying it off the peg.
Budweiser — or rather their agency — happened on a great film, with a great cast and a great insight into slang: ‘That’s really how we talk to each other,’ said Stone when interviewed later. ‘We used to call each other on the phone 15 years ago, during our college years, and that was our greeting. People say it seems real to them. It is real.’2 Budweiser had the wisdom to preserve that realness and, of course, the intelligence to make the ad.
A final note: the campaign before Whassup featured belching frogs and talking lizards. A year after Whassup first aired the creative director on the account, Don Pogany, said, ‘Maybe our lizards and frogs have run their course. This might be the next big thing.’3 He was right: it was the next big thing. Budweiser never went back to ads starring frogs — and for that, at least, we can all be rather grateful.
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
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Reports by the New York Times indicate that it helped Anheuser-Busch boost sales by some 2.4m barrels, with a 15% increase in sales during the campaign (1999-2002).
Op cit.