I HAVE A MINOR COMPLAINT: Bud Light Seltzer Makes No Sense

Our good friends at the Anheuser-Busch InBev beer corporation have an exciting new product they’d like to tell you about:

Bud Light Seltzer is an easy-drinking hard seltzer with a hint of delicious fruit flavor to deliver the most refreshing taste possible. It is 100 calories, 5% ABV, has <1g of sugar and comes in four great flavors – black cherry, mango, lemon lime and strawberry. It is the perfect hard seltzer for any occasion using a unique five-step filtration process and the highest quality ingredients like sparkling water, real cane sugar, and natural fruit flavor.

Whatever. Seltzers are big, and ABI’s first major foray into the space, Bon and Viv, tanked.

But Bud Light Seltzer? This makes no sense. Budweiser is a beer. Light is an adjective describing what kind of beer. Seltzer is … not beer. “Bud Light Seltzer” is like selling “Smoked Gouda Folding Chairs.” Please, stop the slaughter of our helpless words!

It gets weirder, in case you wondered. The ads launching the campaign are predictably terrible, but include this dialogue:

Announcer: “If you don’t love Bud Light—”

Random woman:“I’m a vodka gal myself.”

Announcer: “—You’ll love Bud Light Seltzer—there’s no Bud Light in it!”

This disruptive example of counter-programming will no doubt be very good for Bud Light sales!

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Also: Dilly Dilly is dead. The revolutionary ad campaign, which captivated a nation when it debuted two years ago, is being put out to pasture ahead of the seltzer launch. The catch-phrase briefly commanded the national zeitgeist, and the campaign was hailed as a watershed by the company. It helped boost the brand to a -5.3% performance the year after release.

RIP.

COVER PHOTO: AB INBEV