Anheuser-Busch Companies: Spuds Mackenzie campaign (1986-1989)

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., introduced its most effective—and most controversial—"spokesman" to national television audiences during the fourth quarter of the 1987 Super Bowl, when Spuds MacKenzie, a bull terrier with one black eye, began touting Bud Light.

Anheuser-Busch Companies: Spuds Mackenzie campaign

William D. Baue

Overview

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., introduced its most effective—and most controversial—"spokesman" to national television audiences during the fourth quarter of the 1987 Super Bowl, when Spuds MacKenzie, a bull terrier with one black eye, began touting Bud Light. By 1989 Spuds had become a victim of his own success, and the effectiveness of the campaign could not sustain the negative publicity the canine created. Anheuser-Busch then ended Spuds MacKenzie's tenure as Bud Light's "Original Party Animal," but not before Spuds had made serious inroads into Miller Lite's control of the light beer market....

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