Anheuser-Busch Companies: Spuds Mackenzie campaign
William D. BaueOverview
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....