In this article by Terry Lefton, published online at sportsbusinessdaily.com, Ian Rappaport talks about his involvement in the Bud Light "Up For Whatever" Super Bowl 2014 commercial campaign directed by Jeff Tremaine.
“Like many marketers, Anheuser-Busch finds connecting with millennials about as easy as completing that perfect March Madness bracket and winning a billion-dollar reward from Warren Buffett.
Thus came the seismic ad agency shift last June of America’s largest beer brand, Bud Light, and its $350 million in measured media spending moving from Translation to BBDO. The first creative work from BBDO debuted on the Super Bowl with a new tag (“The Perfect Beer For Whatever Happens”) and an accompanying thematic (“Up For Whatever”).
The new positioning for America’s best-selling beer was what we found intriguing. Research among beer drinkers showed A-B that for Bud Light to be relevant among millennials, it needed to differentiate using intangibles.
“We needed to be authentic,” said Rob McCarthy, Bud Light vice president. “That means doing things with millennials in real time in ways that are surprising and delighting. That’s where we started.”
The next step was hiring Jeff Tremaine of the jackass
TV and film franchise to direct the artistic pranking of a millennial. Then, the quandary became locating that millennial everyman — and that’s where Ian Rappaport came in.
