Budweiser is launching their new Red Sox bottles today for the Boston home opener with the Red Sox logo is prominently displayed on new aluminum bottles of Budweiser and Bud Light. About 75,000 to 100,000 cases of the bottles are expected to be sold.
Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Bud, is the official beer of Major League Baseball so they get to do almost anything they want even though MLB has strict standards for alcohol advertising. For example, players are not allowed to do sponsorship deals with beer companies. If the players association was smart, they’d look into repealing this rule as Dice-K already has a beer commercial for Asahi and it features the Red Sox logo in the ad.
Sam Kennedy, SVP of Sales and Marketing for the Red Sox, said that the promotion didn’t cross any lines: “What would be unacceptable would be any targeted advertising that is in an environment where there is a larger percentage of kids [than adults].” Sure. The Red Sox can do whatever they want to make money but let’s not pretend that beer advertisement isn’t also targeted towards teenagers. This isn’t nearly as bad as alcohol ads on Nascar vehicles but let’s just own up and call it a cash grab, ok?
Links:
[Boston Herald]: Bud’s latest pitch: Brewed for buffs
3 replies on “Next thing you know, Budweiser will sponsor the basepads”
Red Sox fans — (Most) Red Sox fans will buy anything with a crimson sock on it. If I were Budweiser, they would be the first team I would do this with, and frankly from a cash-grab standpoint, it’s genius.
Kids — Thousands of Boston kids are now pretending to be Sox fans so their parents will buy them a “souvenir” six pack.
MLB Budweiser sponsorship — Yeah, that whole freedom of speech thing really sucks, doesn’t it?