There’s a (relatively) new ad campaign for Bud Light beer on billboards and in subways in the NY area.
I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about them that bugs me but there’s something unsettling and odd about them. On the surface, it’s the usual young & underdressed people posing and hoisting a brewski.
OK… first off, they don’t seem to be having fun. You’d expect them to be having the time of their lives, that’s how these underdressed-young folks-partying beer ads work, right?
These folks look…I dunno, defiant or something. Awkward, embarrassed. Like getting caught with a Bud in hand was akin to being caught masturbating. Or like kids in trouble being called up in front of the class and forced to tell the other kids what wrong thing they got caught doing.
Second…those are some seriously huge bomber-sized Bud bottles they’ve got there. It could be an artifact of camera angle or something but they look like they’d run 32 to 48 ounces even though they are shaped like a regular 12-ounce longneck would be. Just bigger.
Maybe it’s just me. (Commercials do affect me oddly). Anyone else seen them? Know what I’m talking about?
I haven’t seen the Bud Light ad, but in a similar vein has anybody seen those billboards for the low-carb beer, is it Michelob Ultra? There’s one with a man and one with a woman, and they look like they’re supposed to be working out.
The one with the guy looks unmistakably like he’s getting a great blowjob. And something about the billboard really somehow seems to suggest that he’s getting it from a guy.
It’s not just me, other people I point it out to snicker also.
Yes, I disliked these from the beginning, but just the other day I was sitting really up close to one and noticed how excessively airbrushed it was. I get the impression that one of these girls is actually two people spliced together, it doesn’t look like her head belongs on her body. And, finally, the guy with the round necklace and shirt busting open is essentially giving everyone the finger.
Conclusion: The ads are weird in a really subtle way.
I’m still waiting for an explanation of the King Cobra Malt Liquor subway ads from last year – A hot chick, covered by the KC label, and the text reads: “30 minutes goes by so fast!”
Huh? Does it take 30 minutes to drink a 40 of KC? Does it take 30 minutes to make love to this chick? Or are you supposed to be drinking KC on your lunch break, and it makes the time fly by?
Is this the series of billboards that has a girl in a bikini sort of lying on her back with her knees pulled up, essentially saying, “Hey! Here’s my pudenda!”
Is that the one where a guy is posed like a superhero in some action pose (mid-jump/punch maybe)? Because I see that one all the time. “Here’s SuperYuppie!”
Those ads bother me too. I’ve noticed that none of those people are looking back at you. Even weirder, they are almost looking back at you. Like they’re looking at the guy just over your shoulder. Or it’s as if they’re about to extoll the virtues of their bottle carbonated urine to you, but they are distracted by their own reflection in a nearby subway car window.
I can’t find any online pix either. One shows a woman in a blue top with her legs up as if she’s got them propped against the side of the ad itself, looking disconcerted/startled back at you. One shows a woman in a red-print halter top that doesn’t fit, holding up a big Bud bottle and looking similarly startled. One shows a compact buff guy looking annoyed. One shows a lightly bearded dude apparently flipping off the camera while holding a bud and holding a girl in the other arm. And some other pix I don’t recall at the moment.
These are the ads with the blue background, right?
They definitely have a disturbing quality about them that’s hard to pin down. I have a feeling a picture of them isn’t going to convey what it’s like to actually be looking at them.
I also agree with the exteme airbrushing. The people seem just real enough to be real.