Monday, August 24, 2009

Budweiser Denies Endorsement Deal With Woman To Be Caned In Malaysia

A spokesman for Budweiser today denied that the brewery was seeking to craft an endorsement deal with the Malaysian woman to be caned next month for drinking beer in public.

“We are not looking to involve ourselves in what we consider an internal matter in that country,” Moe Blathington, a corporate spokesman, told a hastily assembled St. Louis, Missouri news conference. “We are certainly not looking to turn this into a commercial opportunity.”

Blathington denied a report that Budweiser had ordered its top executives to Malaysia to strike a million dollar endorsement deal with the woman in question, a 32-year-old nurse, mother, and part-time model.

He also denied a report that the brewery’s primary ad agency, the Chicago office of DDB Worldwide Communication Group, had already created a series of storyboards based on a series of ads intended to appeal to men 21-35 years of age and had been testing campaigns with focus groups.

According to published reports, the ad campaigns had these taglines:

Bottoms Up!

Budweiser…The Butt-Meister!

Whipping The Competition

Citizen Cane

Good To The Last Swat

Whip It! Whip It Good!

Blathington denied that the most successful ad tagline, the one that had the most success with focus groups, was This Butt’s For You!

“We’re a caring company,” Blathington said. “We would never seek to capitalize on someone else’s misfortune. Well, maybe just this once.”

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