Budweiser’s big splash during this Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast will be two 60-second spots: one promoting Canada’s favourite sport and a second labelling a person who drinks and drives as being a “shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution.”
It’s the first time in Canada that Budweiser has released two ads during Super Bowl week, said Andrew Oosterhuis, director of Budweiser Canada.
The first ad, created for Canada only, is the latest in the beer brand’s Red Light campaign, which launched in 2013. The newest instalment is the introduction of the “Canada’s Goal Light,” a 20-foot-tall, fully functioning, goal-synced Budweiser Red Light. The light has been built to endure temperatures of below 40 degrees and 120 miles per hour arctic winds, said Budweiser.
The TV spot, shot in northern Alberta with a distinctively Mad Max feel, was created with Budweiser’s agency of record, Anomaly. It shows the difficult journey the light must make through Canada’s harsh winter climate as it heads for the North Pole — it’s destination “as a beacon this September claiming hockey as Canada’s game.” The reference is to the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which takes place in September in Toronto.
The #LightTheLamp campaign will also include a cross-Canada tour of the actual goal light, starting in Plaster Rock, N.B. later this month at the World Pond Hockey Championships.
“For us, it was a natural evolution of the Red Light story,” which launched at the Super Bowl in 2013, said Oosterhuis.
The campaign symbolizes “the moment in hockey that has the most celebration and emotion — which is the goal moment,” Oosterhuis said.
The Red Light campaign has had different iterations, including the Budweiser Red Zeppelin (a blimp described as “world’s largest goal light”) as well as the Red Light helmets given to Calgary Flames fans during a home game against the Washington Capitals in the fall of 2013.
Consumers can also buy the Budweiser Red Light Wi-Fi-enabled replica of hockey goal lights on Budweiser.ca. They make a goal horn sound whenever a user’s favourite hockey team scores.
Oosterhuis said the campaign has been a success to date and will continue for the foreseeable future.
“We believe there is a lot left in the Red Light platform,” said Oosterhuis. “As marketers, we get way to bored and tired of an idea before consumers. The more we drive awareness and ownership of the Red Light experience, we see great results.”
The second Budweiser spot (from Anomaly’s New York office) is a public service announcement featuring actress Helen Mirren, who describes herself in it as a “a notoriously frank and uncensored British lady” taking a shot at drinking and driving.
In the new #GiveADamn campaign ad, Mirren says, “we are dumbfounded that people still drive drunk.” Her tirade continues by calling people who drive drunk “shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution.” Continues Mirren: “If your brain was donated to science, science would return it. So stop it.”
Oosterhuis said the PSA premiered on NBC’s Today Show this week.
