Once again, we're seeing a public company embarrassed by a stupid marketing mistake. Bud Lite, in an effort to extend its "Up for Anything" marketing campaign added this to its bottles: The Perfect Beer for Removing No from your Vocabulary for the Night."Now, I don't know what rock the Budweiser management has been living under, but there has been - for years - concerns about the words "yes" and "no" ... especially around the hugely sensitive issues of rape and drug use. So, while it made sense to somebody that this line would be identified with the "up for anything" positioning, it set off a firestorm of incredulity.
This is one of those instances where I would have loved to be present in the boardroom when this idea was presented. Didn't ANYBODY see the problem coming? Didn't someone pipe up and say "we're gonna get in trouble with that line"? Didn't the lawyers ... or management ... or ANYBODY catch this clearly insensitive and clueless proposal?? Maybe even a worker at the bottling plant could have noticed this and said "what are you guys thinking?"
I don't know why, but no one stopped this runaway bad idea. Now Budweiser is making a public apology and dealing with brand damage control.
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