Budweiser is well known for their Super Bowl commercials that capture the hearts of Americans for 30 seconds a year with their use of the Clydesdale horses, puppies, and more. The beer company has been airing a Super Bowl commercial for 37 years, and this year they broke that tradition.
Budweiser is a brand under the company Anheuser-Busch, An American Brewing Company that also owns brands such as Bud Light, Shock Top, Michelob Ultra, Stella-Artois, and more. And although the company still decided to air ads for both Bud Light and Michelob Ultra, they knew that a no-show from the iconic Clydesdale horses wouldn't go unnoticed.
Instead of their iconic Super Bowl ad, the company donated their $5.6 million ad slot to support critical COVID-19 vaccine awareness. Donations and some of their pre-planned ad time for the year will be used by the Ad Council and COVID Collaboratives Vaccine Education initiative, the company told CNN Business.
While they were not the only company to refrain from a Super Bowl ad this year, they were the only company, in my opinion, to boost their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) while also looking to benefit their business in the long run. COVID -19 has hurt everyone globally, included in that are restaurants whose alcohol sales have plummeted due to more take-out only options and just the overall decline in people eating out. Restaurants like bars, dives, and other American style restaurants make a substantial amount of income from alcohol sales in house. It is almost impossible to sell take-out alcoholic beverages, so the only way these beer and beverage companies were making money is by selling their canned products.
By promoting their efforts to vaccination awareness they are not only doing good for the current state of America but also helping their business in the long run. As more people are educated on the positive values of the vaccination, the goal is that more people will get the vaccination. As more people get the vaccination, the risk of spreading COVID-19 at such a high rate goes down, and people feel more comfortable to go out to eat at restaurants again. This in return leads to increases in beer sales as people start to go out to restaurants and bars for social interactions and enjoyment. Since Anheuser-Busch, and more specifically the Budweiser brand are so focused on American pride, this is a great effort to set themselves apart helping the country while also staying true to their brand and helping themselves in the meantime.
Other more permanent CSR partnerships that the company is involved in are employee blood drives with the American Red Cross, building neighborhoods with Habitat for Humanities, and their emergency drinking water project in which they have continued both throughout 2020 and into 2021. Most recently, they sent over 1 million cans of drinking water to Texas during their most recent deadly snow and ice storms.
Other companies that opted out of a Super Bowl Ad this year included PepsiCo. who focused more of their ads on the halftime show featuring The Weeknd, and Coca-Cola, who said they were going to focus more on the right resources. The same impacts that COVID-19 has had on beer sales have impacted soda sales. Since people have stopped eating at restaurants people have stopped consuming soda away from home, drastically affecting Coca-Cola's business.
To see more about what Budweiser is doing for the community and COVID-19 relief visit them at: https://www.budweiser.com
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