Bud Light apologizes for Controversial ‘Removing No’ Ad Tagline

Execs at Bud Light are supposedly repentant over a controversial ad tagline. They have invited extensive criticism for their blunder regarding the removal of a word from the advert.

Bud Light’s latest campaign titled “Up for Whatever” was actually all about camaraderie and bonhomie. But instead of these words which had to do with healthy competition, the campaign floundered somewhere on the shores of public opinion.

Some of the erstwhile fans of the brand of beer were very disgusted by the blooper committed by the ad campaign. A bottle of beer bearing the words “The perfect beer for removing ‘No’ from your vocabulary for the night” in the ad rubbed consumers the wrong way. A Reddit user GhosX9 posted image (seen above) of the bear with the controversial caption on Monday.

The claim is being made that this sort of advertising and marketing strategy is an open invitation for the already raunchy males of the species to commit date rape. The bottle that had this message emblazoned at its bottom was a sample of Anheuser-Busch beer.

There were several other one-liners as well which were a part of this campaign. They made quite a list going into some four dozen kinds of saucy and crispy taglines. One read “intended to inspire spontaneous fun”.  

A high ranking female exec in the marketing department of Bud Light took to the social online pages to offer a brief apology for the mistake. Lisa Weser explains to AdWeek that it was indeed sad that the message had missed the mark and that her company would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior by anyone.

@Adweek It’s clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.— Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser) April 28, 2015

@Adweek That’s an excerpt of a longer statement media received, soon to be on our pressroom.— Lisa Weser (@LisaWeser) April 28, 2015

Meanwhile, the Veep of Bud Light also spoke words that had a similar tenor. He said that in fact over 140 messages had been generated as part of the campaign. And the fact that this one went way off the handle and at a tangent to human respect and enjoying alcohol responsibly was a very regrettable thing indeed.

What was meant to inspire good old “boys will be boys” fun seems to have misfired somewhere in its angle of attack. Beer is the most benign form of alcoholic drink on the planet. It contains the least percentage of intoxicating liquor per liquid batch.

Yet were one to go on imbibing one can after another, some very serious consequences could ensue. So care and caution are of the essence in such a scenario. Instead of encouraging those enthusiastic enough to cross the line when it comes to ungentlemanly behavior, the Bud Light ad ought to have stuck to the “enjoy responsibly” tagline that is seen on every alcoholic liquor ad across the Western World. 

Complete apology statement of Bud Light is given below:

“The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage brand engagement. It’s clear that this particular message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior. As a result, we have immediately ceased production of this message on all bottles.”