Bud Light takes advantage of their name and witty reputation to relate to society with incorporation of sex appeal and humor accordingly to make their wide demographic of men understand the pleasure in drinking their beer. All the rhetorical appeals are demonstrated in this short commercial and almost all the strategies of development are used to persuade the audience to drink Bud Light. Their commercials have always been renown for their sense of humor and millions look forward to them during the annual Super Bowl because of their infamous history. They preach that their beer is reliable but they show their advertisements are too, same as the beer, they never let you down.
As you watch the Bud Light commercial you can see many different appeals being utilized and they are all supported by various rhetorical strategies. Pathos, Logos, and Ethos are all in this commercial to better persuade the audience. These rhetorical appeals are very helpful to the vendor.
First, pathos dominates the ad, it relates to our emotion in a few different ways. It interrelates humor and sex appeal. In this case, humor is the main effect of pathos that is used. Budweiser is infamous for their smart marketing as most of their ads are hilarious. In a USA Today article discussing the supremacy of Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl ads, Kathleen Stobie, a Silver Spring, Md., resident who is a coordinator with her county government states, "Humor gets me over anything -- not stupid humor” relating to the funny Budweiser commercials (Horovitz 6B). Description adds to those affects. A description that makes an impact on persuading the audience was the tone in which the wife said she had Bud Light. It was complimenting the beer very well. It was a short phrase but told a lot about the product. It obviously is good because they way she said she has “cold Bud Light” was very seductive and emphasized the pleasure of the beer. This is an example of sex appeal and humor being used together. The sexy wife in lingerie using Bud Light as her bribe. Things such as candles, women wearing lingerie, and satin sheets are usually used for sex appeal in ads but in this case they contribute more to the humor than anything else. This is evident in the focal point when the husband slides across the sheets and out the window. Also, the analogy of the elephant sound playing as the man is running upstairs shows that he was acting wild and animalistic, this relates to our feelings of lust. Finally the compare and contrast strategy is brilliant. Sex vs. beer and the beer wins, this is a good strategy to use, especially since men are the main clients for beer companies, it helps relate to the demographic.
Cultural resonance plays a big part in the pathos aspect. The well known symbols appear of Bud Light when it shows the infamous bottle cap. Also, in our society the male is usually willing to have sex at any opportunity he gets, when he doesn’t, especially in a common place such as a bedroom with an accepted person, his wife, our society thinks that is a bit odd and perhaps shocked that he chose something else over a very pleasurable act. This makes that something, in this case Bud Light, stand out a lot more and tells us that it is a remarkable product.
Second, logos is used too. Referring back to cultural resonance, we are shocked at the man’s decision. This shock makes us think that logically there is no choice but to think that the product is astounding to beat sex. It uses logos to make the audience think more about the product and its luxuries that we might not have thought about before. It is common sense, anything that makes someone get up that instantaneously must be pretty darn good. The ad uses example and illustration to help demonstrate logos. It shows how the product impacts a person’s life. It uses the story to exemplify how amazing the beer tastes, it wins over sex, and that must be good for a guy to choose that over sex. The product makes an impact if just its name gets a guy to react that quickly to it. Cause and effect relates to this as well. If you drink Bud Light then you will have an amazing experience and you will have never tasted anything so excellent.
Finally, ethos is used. Mainly because Bud Light in general is a very well known product. Anheuser-Busch, the speaker, is as reliable as their products. This past year it won for a record ninth-consecutive year with their funny crab commercial, USA Today’s exclusive Ad Meter real-time consumer focus group ranking of Super Bowl commercials (Horovitz 6B). Bud Light maintains great
credibility with how popular they are and people keep coming back to buy it. Their descriptive, well known slogan was at the end of the commercial, “The great taste that won’t fill you up and never let you down, make it a Bud Light”. This alone is classification of their beer, it is obviously better than the rest. Although their other main form of ethos, the bull frogs, weren’t used in this ad, it was still just as effective. Their name and logo is very renown still and people keep coming back for more of that great taste.In conclusion, this commercial does many things correctly in order to persuade its audience. Even if you don’t like beer you will still get a good laugh out of this ad, and maybe that is what their goal is as well, to not only have a good reputation for their taste but for their name as well. I saw this commercial years ago, yet it still runs in my mind from time to time, it left an imprint on my mind and that shows they did something right.
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Works Cited
Horovitz, Bruce. "Anheuser-Busch wins with crabby crawlers ." USA Today 5 Feb.2007: 6B.
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