According to the Wall Street Journal (and other sources) dozens of colleges are up in arms over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign that features Bud Light beer cans emblazoned with local schools’ team colors.
The Bud Light promotion, which involves 27 different color combinations, started rolling out this month. Purple-and-gold cans are being sold near the campus of Louisiana State University, and red-and-gold containers near Iowa State University.
Foreign owned A-B Inbev says that the campaign is aimed only at fans who can drink legally and that it has long supported efforts to fight alcohol abuse. It notes that the cans don’t bear any school’s name or logo. And it says it will drop the campaign near any college that makes a formal complaint.
So then, about 25 of the schools complained, and the “Fan Cans” were dropped.
But that chain reaction–caused by bad publicity–is kind of stupid. I’m not going to get on my high horse about BL’s “drinkability” but if you guys were going to drink Bud Light on game day, wouldn’t you like it from a Fan Can? Would it make you drink more if it were in a Fan Can?
The answers are Yes, and No. Of course you’d like a Fan Can beer with your colors on it, but some teetotalers at your school complained, and now you’ll just drink BL from the regular blue can. And you won’t drink more or less BL, you’ll have the same amount you normally would (a lot).
But look at the bright side drinkers… I bet you might be able to get the beer from the distributors anyway… and you’ll have yourself a nice little collectable.
Collect them all, and you can have yourselves a College Bud Bowl.
The colors on some of those cans look horrible… but I’m not from any of those schools.
The colors on some of those cans look horrible… but I’m not from any of those schools.