The ghost of Spuds MacKenzie is back to shame a guy into going out with his friends like he was the ghost of Christmas past. It's a great self-referential ad and if you happened to have been around in the 80s you'll enjoy it. Even if you aren't it's a familiar enough premise to get a chuckle. The line where Spuds asks the dude open him a B.L. because he doesn't have thumbs, is gold as is the "on second thought, maybe not," bit with the fedora. If you're a millennial, you might be scratching your head a bit unless you fell down the 80's rabbit hole on Youtube.
Still, this ad avoids navel-gazing (a rarity in and of itself considering the agency) and manages to captivate and keep the comedy Bid Light broad without resorting to stupidity or alienating half the audience by turning into a ham-fisted political preach machine with two comedians you either love or loathe like the campaign starring Seth Rogen and Amy Schumer that Bud Light mercifully killed last year. It also makes sense to revisit Spuds the glory days of Bud Light and remind people what it used to stand for. A time which, not so coincidentally, was also when Bud Light was enjoying success. As opposed to today when its sales are way, way down. I wonder if this represents a larger stylistic shift in advertising rather than a one off. Let's hope so. The world needs a lot less politics in its beer and a whole lot more Spuds, imo.
Client: Bud Light
Agency: WK New York
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That's not a fedora. That's a trilby.
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