Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Anheuser-Busch Does It Again -- Truly Fun Commercial for the 2020 NFL Season

It's apparent that times are strange. The mask thing is just one facet of our 2020 life experience, accompanied by markers on the floor spaced six feet apart in every public space. Strangest of all, IMHO, are the cardboard fans for baseball and football, accompanied by fake crowd noise. 

What I keep thinking is, when will Hollywood make films about events in 2020 in which the characters put on masks when they go to the store? (If this has already happened let me know in the comments.) 

Scott Adams, earlier than anyone else, had Dilbert and his co-workers masked, a cutting edge on the wave one might expect to be coming. That was at least a couple months ago, and still we see no masks on Dagwood and Blondie, Zits characters, the Lockhorns, Pickles or Rex Morgan.

So it was tremendously fun to catch the new Bud Light spot this past week during my few minutes watching the Browns get shanked by Pittsburgh. I have not been watching much football this year, so maybe this was not the debut weekend for it, but it was absolute fun. There will be a link below if you haven't seen it. 

The two minute spot opens with a brief long shot showing a professional sports stadium, then cuts to the camera facing the stands, crowded with cardboard cutouts as stand-ins for fans. One of the cardboard cutouts, our hero, spots a cardboard cutout of a beer vendor. (At this point it is a world of Flat Stanleys.) He proceeds to stand and slide out to make his way there for a Bud Light. Unfortunately, there is no beer left in the beer basket.

Our hero decides to go explore. Maybe he can find a beer elsewhere under the stands. Lucky he. A forklift loaded with cases of Bud Light. As he approaches the forklift, a worker says, "Hey! Can I help you?" 

Our hero, with his usual chagrined expression, quickly hurries off. As he leaves the stadium he sees a Bud Light delivery truck parked across the street. Unfortunately, he doesn't look both ways when crossing the street (a challenge without a real neck) so that he is struck by a car. Our flat hero is flattened against the windshield of a bus. The bus driver flips him aside with the flick of a windshield wiper.

His expression never changing--a cross between bemused nobody-in-particular and hapless hero--he ends up on the street, walked on, staring skyward. Shortly after he ends up in a dumpster where suddenly, there on the side of a building, he finds inspiration once again by a giant ad for Bud Light. 

After a quick interlude in the back of a garbage truck he ends up on his feet again and continues his quest. I won't spoil the ending. To see the actual spot here's the hotlink: Cardboard Cutout Seeks to Quench His Thirst

Kudos to the ad agency that invented this story, a tall tale perfectly suited for our maddening postmodern times. 

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