I have always been a fan of Budweiser beer commercials, especially those that are aired during the Super Bowl. Usually my favorite ads are funny, but as I browsed through ads on Google, I noticed that there is a very common theme throughout the ads: The Budweiser girls. Budweiser is taking full advantage of the sex appeal factor that proves to work time and time again in all different forms of advertising. The use of the attractive, sparsely clothed young women in their ads appeals to men, which are the main audience targeted by the Budweiser Company. Another tactic that Budweiser uses in their ads is a phrase claiming that Budweiser is the "King of Beers." This claim is another tactic that speaks to the masculinity of men. If you drink the king of beers, you will be the king. This creates the illusion that drinking Budweiser beer will make you more powerful among your peers. I have always wondered how much time and money goes into the advertisement tactics beer along with a number of other products. According to the Pacific Brew News, Budweiser spent a little under 500 million dollars in 2007 on advertising. Maybe advertising in a major brewing company is the job to have.
Budweiser Advertisement Analysis
I agree 100%. Beer in the american culture, has always been a very masculine and sexually appealing item to the men. These advertising tactics that Budweiser uses are also used by all types of alcoholic beverages. They want to enforce the idea that, if you drink this, you will be sexually attractive to women, and intimidating to other men.
Wow. I knew that a lot of work must have been put into advertising for beer, but I had no idea that that much money was being put into it! In my opinion, the sexual aspect of advertising is getting way to much attention, even though it works very well. I think people should be influenced more in other ways. This may be an unrealistic thought. For beer advertising though, getting others to want to be powerful and sexually attractive to women is almost a perfect strategy. Many males who tend to drink beer could be seen as masculine, versus those whose drink of choice is wine, for instance.
I wonder how much advertisements like these actually effect people on the specific product. You talked of the entire alcohol industry doing similar advertising strategies, so in accordance with a common UCS being less effective then a unique one, wouldn't excessive amounts of ads encourage a consumer to just drink beer regardless of which label is on the bottle? just a thought
however you decide to label an advertisement as brainwashing, in the end it has to appeal to it's directed consumers. in other words, one could say that the commercials are trying to condition us. but, perhaps it's simpler than that. if one watches a commercial they like, than doesn't that make the product more like-able in the viewers eyes?
i guess what i'm saying is you can't particularly blame the commercial for being a commercial, you have to also blame the consumer for liking it in the first place :P
If you ever watch the commercial during the Superbowl (only part of the Superbowl I actually watch) you'll see that 1/3 of these adds are for beer, while the other 2/3 are for other masculine related items like chips and cars and such. Getting an advertising spot during the superbowl costs a ton of money, but when you think about it, the shocking part is they spend those ridiculous amounts because putting that ad there will produce that much or more back in profits of sales in response to seeing such ads. It's quite impressive, someone could consider it a form of hypnotism with the flashy pictures, the alluring music, and the emotional reactions one would have from such an ad to go buy the product.
Interesting blog. The way I see it is that Budweiser is trying to classically condition us to enjoy their product. They offer the unconditioned stimulus of sex and success to cause a positive emotion. When they pair budweiser with these things our conditioned response is to accept beer as the cause of this emotion, therefore we want it. We are like their lab rats, and we pay them!