Bud Light’s team-color cans upset some colleges
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bud Light plans on selling team-colored cans near college campuses this fall (e.g. the LSU purple-and-gold can taken from WSJ.com and posted at right, gratis).
This may just be the best beer marketing idea I’ve ever heard. I know if Bud Light is selling maroon & gold cans anywhere near the Arizona State campus, I’m buying. (Sorry UCLA & USC fans–except not really.) If this isn’t the best beer marketing idea, it’s definitely the best college football beer marketing idea, ever.
However, some schools are not too happy and are calling for sales to be stopped. I guess I understand the argument, but I really think these schools need to lighten up. (Get it? Lighten up? Hey-oh!)
According to WSJ.com:
At least 25 schools have formally asked Anheuser-Busch to drop the campaign near their campuses, Mr. Siegal says. In recent letters, the University of Michigan’s lawyers threatened legal action for alleged trademark infringement, demanding that Anheuser-Busch not sell the “maize and blue” cans in the “entire state.” The University of Colorado, Oklahoma State University, Texas A&M University and Boston College have also told the company to stop distribution near their campuses, citing trademark issues and concern about student alcohol use.
Some of these schools believe that the cans will somehow give the impression that the universities support drinking. Let’s be honest, whether or not these cans come out, there will be underage drinkers on college campuses. Colorful cans probably won’t have a significant impact on how much alcohol is purchased and consumed, only on which brand is purchased and consumed. I completely understand that underage drinking creates problems, and that alcohol-related deaths on college campuses are no joke. But colorful cans aren’t the problem, and I don’t see how stopping them changes anything. Plus, whose to say that these schools “own” these colors. It’s not like school logos are being placed on the cans.
Maybe these schools believe that since Bud Light is newly-owned by InBev, a Belgium company, it will take business away from stateside beer companies and hurt the United States economy, but I doubt it. And besides, it will help the city of St. Louis. I like the city of St. Louis. So let us of-age drinkers enjoy a good thing, responsibly.
Congratulations, InBev. I like it. Here’s my money.
Brian Laesch is a tenured blogger at BrianLaesch.com.
