Media Project 1

In a previous post I wrote about a commercial for Budweiser, but it was less about advertising the beer and more about bringing awareness to drunk driving and saying to not drink under the influence. I’m bringing this commercial back up because it is powerful and it is unique. Many people die every year from accidents where someone drives under the influence (this commercial focuses on alcohol, but you could relate it to any drug that causes the brain the become impaired). People love their animals and tend to have a unique connection with them, and that is why I think this commercial is so powerful.

This commercial starts out with a younger man bringing home a puppy, then there are short clips strung together of the man and his dog playing together, you can see that the dog is growing older and you know they’ve spent a lot of time together. Budweiser bottles make a few appearances at the time. During these clips there is music playing,  a song called I’ll be Waiting (When You Come Home) by Dan Rodriguez. In the song it says “you are me, we are made for love,” giving the viewer a sense of the connection between the man and his dog. As the words “I’ll be waiting here for when you come home to me,” play from the song the man is leaving with his friends, Budweiser in hand, and tells his dog goodbye. This song stops and music without words plays as the dog lays on the couch, waiting for his owner to return., looking up each time a car’s lights shine through. Words pop up on the screen saying “For some, the waiting never ended,” and then “But we can change that.” Quickly, the commercial goes to the man opening the front door, the happy music starting again, and telling his dog he thought he shouldn’t drive home that night and stayed at his friend’s house. Words pop up on the screen one more time and say “Make a plan to make it home. You friends are counting on you.” At the very end of the commercial the Budweiser logo is on the screen.

In 2014 this minute long commercial made its first debut. Budweiser has used puppies in a few of their commercials, but there is no story between them with the dog, nor is the actor is this one in other Budweiser ads. I remember seeing it on TV, no special event going on or anything, just in between other commercials and my show, but it became a favorite of mine. I didn’t know at the time, but it was released during the 5th Annual Global Be(er) Responsible Day. There are so many don’t drink and drive ads, but introducing a dog and showing the companionship between the him and his owner makes it stand out from others.

Emotions are greatly impacted with this commercial and are the prime persuasive technique being used. Using pathos rather than swarming the viewer with statistics regarding drunk driving, gives the commercial a new appeal. By starting the commercial with the dog as a puppy we are given a story which gives the impression that the dog and his owner have become big parts of one another’s lives and that they have spent many years together, if it had started in the middle of the video montage of a grown dog playing with his owner we wouldn’t have known or understood the relationship: that if the man hadn’t come back the dog would have lost his best friend and would need a new home. The writers of this commercial took advantage of this platform in the best way. Pictures and still ads can be used to tell minor stories, but not as clearly as a video can. With a video, as this commercial is, the words on the screen can change and don’t have to be there at all times. When we are intended to be watching the bond grow between the man and his dog we are able to pay attention to this alone and when we are supposed to be reading the words that tell us what this ad is really about they are the only thing on the screen. This gives each part of the commercial it’s own time to be focused on.

Budweiser has accomplished creating a memorable commercial. Most often, it is people in their 20’s who drink and drive, this commercial gives people in that age group a chance to relate. The man is in his 20’s, appears to be single, and lives alone with his dog. Other campaigns against driving drunk tend to portray children being left behind or spouses which a lot of people in the young college age don’t have yet. I believe that this is one of the strengths of this commercial, giving the chance for the younger generation to relate and to think about how their animals are family too. That their choices make an impact on the lives of others. I personally don’t see any weaknesses in this ad. It’s powerful as it is and is unique from other ads against drinking and driving. Although, I could see why someone would say the lack of statistics could be a weakness. Potentially, the writers of the commercial could have found something in regards to how many pets must be rehomed due to drunk drivers or the number of people in their 20’s in these accidents, but I believe that this would have taken away from the commercial. The words which take over the screens to say that some pets never stopped waiting for their owners are powerful alone and appeal to emotion. Putting statistics into it may have turned some people away from reading what was on the screen because they feel as though they have heard it all.

Many online news companies wrote about this advert. One, Daily Mail, says that when the commercial was uploaded onto YouTube it quickly reached seven million viewers (this article being written in 2014, we can see the views has increased even more since). At the end of the article it mentions how the Vice President of marketing at Budweiser says that they are trying to connect with beer drinkers in memorable ways, not just through drinking their beer, but through promoting responsible drinking and actions as well. YouTube is clearly is very successful social media aid for this ad, but another articles mentions how Twitter is being used to talk about how this commercial made them feel. USA Today writes about the success of this ad and ads in actual tweets people have posted in regards to watching it, all being about how it made them sad and hit home. These tweets prove the successfulness of the commercial and how it makes people think about their pets that they have at home, waiting for them to come back. A few more tweets can be seen in an article on the website Mashable. This ad is less about a product than it is about being responsible. However, if I were one to drink, this ad would make me think about supporting a company that wants to bring awareness to being responsible rather than other beer companies which display parties or sexualize girls to attract attention from potential consumers and I would recommend others do the same. If other companies see the impact Budweiser made by creating a commercial like this one then maybe they will do the same.

While researching this commercial I discovered why it was created, as I mentioned before it was a part of global day about drinking responsibly. I also learned that the dog in the commercial is actually multiple dogs, they had a few in each age group so the dogs could take breaks from set and weren’t being treated poorly. This doesn’t have much to do with the commercial and it’s message itself, but it shows even more how Budweiser is a company that truly cares.