Commercial: Budweiser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVcbasIb8lQ

Budweiser’s 1990’s frog commercial is one of the most well-known Alcoholic commercials world-wide. The three frogs, affectionately names “Bud”, “Weis”, and “Er”, appeared in the first commercial in a long advertising campaign that introduced several swamp animals and their quests for their beloved beer. Among the other animals are two lizards’ names Louie and Frank, an unnamed ferret and an alligator. Off all these commercials though, the frogs are still the most well known.

These beloved frogs were created by Greg Gorman with the commercial being directed by Tom DeCherchio. Their commercial quickly rose to fame and is now listed among the top five best Super Bowl commercial advertisements, according to MSNBC.

Though this advertising campaign was loved by many, there were those who wanted to see the end of it. Many critics believed that this campaign was to relatable to younger children, thus forcing the Budweiser Company to defend its actions on many different levels. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is among those who waged a campaign to block and censure the company’s many commercials and advertisements.

Another situation in which the Budweiser frogs were attacked was when the Budweiser Frogs screen saver was made available to the general public. Some claimed that the file had a virus in it that could delete a computer’s entire hard drive while others reported it was only a hoax. One other situation in which the frogs had faced television extermination was on the Simpson’s show when the last frog goes up to say “Er” a giant alligator rises from the water, eats the frog, then simply says “Coors”.

Aside from the general love of the commercials and the publicity generated from them, the frogs and lizards have gone on to bigger and better things such as appearing in several sitcoms, on the sides on company trailers trucks and even to being painted on the sides of NASCAR race cars, of which Budweiser is a large contributor and supporter.

While this commercial may be controversial to an extent, it is nice to see a beer/alcohol commercial that does not rely on nudity, from either sex, to sell the product.