BUUUUUUD BUDWEISER
Created at BETC ParisInsight
In France Budweiser is called Bud. The word ‘goal’ in French is ‘But» pronounced exactly like the beer.
Idea
Budweiser was the sponsor of the 2023 World Cup. The issue is that in France alcohol advertising is forbidden by law when it comes to sports. So how do you sponsor an event if you can’t even say it? Well, we came up with a crafty way to hack the law by taking advantage of the similarity between Bud (the name of the beer) and But (‘goal’ in french»). Bud entirely changed the name of the brand in France (which is legal) during the World Cup from «Bud»to «Buuuuuud»without saying a single word to the press. We promoted the new brand name on billboards, subways, bottles, merchandise, football stadiums in Qatar etc and the French public got the hack. Budweiser became the fastest growing lager in France during the World Cup and the law has changed since to avoid similar hacks. The campaign has been so successful it is being implemented in other French speaking countries like Canada.
Awards
Creative X (InBev's internal award judged by the likes of John Sir Hegarty, Pancho Cassis, Jose Sokoloff etc)
- The campaign won best idea and execution at the InBev internal awards against every other campaign from every other Inbev brand in the world in 2023. Sadly, it was not entered into award shows because of the legal consequences the campaign generated with the French law due to the hack.
