Ever think it would be cool to live in a beer ad? To be one of the shiny, happy people out having an amazing time with unlimited beer available to you?
Anheuser-Busch knows how enviable life looks in a beer advertisement…and that’s why they made it a reality for some really lucky beer lovers.
Bud Light took over the sleepy Colorado ski town of Crested Butte this past weekend for a three-day party. And when we say they took over the town, we mean it; in exchange for $500,000, Crested Butte gave Bud Light free reign to paint their streets blue, strip businesses of any local markings, install outdoor hot tubs, and build a giant concert stage.
The town was renamed “Whatever USA” and the company flew in 1,000 young adults for a spring-break style weekend. Those lucky people were chosen from a pool of more than 150,000 folks who submitted videos to Anheuser-Busch and answered pressing questions like:
• If you were a DJ in Whatever USA, what would be your DJ name and why?
• In Whatever USA, we have parades all the time. What do you think is worth throwing a parade for and why?
• Based on your skills, what World Record do you think you could set?
We don’t know what kind of answers the company was looking for, but the 1,000 who had the best videos got a free trip to Whatever USA and unlimited Bud Light during filming. There are already pictures up on their website from the weekend, so you can get a sneak peek into what went on in Whatever USA and what you may see in a future ad. It looks like it was really fun, but we think they may have spent most of their budget on buying the town because in the end, they were only able to get D-list celebs in there like Vanilla Ice and the Prancersize lady. Imagine seeing the Prancersize lady after you’ve enjoyed a day of unlimited beers…your brain might explode.
It seems like a pretty extreme publicity stunt for Bud Light, but we are intrigued at the same time. We are reserving judgment until we see how they use the footage from this weekend and what kind of effect it has on their sales.