Bud Light Ad, Demographics, and Visual

An AdAge article describes a new Bud Light ad and references a movie from the 70’s, raising questions about the target demographic.

The scene is a dean’s office, with a student being accused of plagiarism. The joke is that others admit to failings just to get a cold bottle of Bud Light.

The AdAge writer describes “a scene recalling Dean Wormer admonishing the Deltas in Animal House.” Although the movie is of my generation, I have no memory of that scene and wonder whether others do. It was a cult film at the time, but still, the cohort is in their 60s now. Maybe students know the movie—or think the ad is funny regardless.

Bud Light’s target demographic is younger, according to this report:

While among Baby Boomer beer drinkers Bud Light has a brand popularity score around 30 percent, it’s almost 40 percent among Gen Z consumers. Similarly, around 40 percent of Millennials have consumed Bud Light in the past 12 months, as compared to 24 percent of Baby Boomer respondents.

According to this Statista chart, Baby Boomers consume less Bud Light than the other demographic groups. Students might redesign the chart. To be fair, the main point isn’t about consumption but is about all key performance indicators (KPIs) of the brand. Still, one obvious problem with the chart is the similarity of colors, which makes them difficult to distinguish in the legend. We’re also missing the total, which is greyed out in the legend. In addition, students might question the order of the KPIs on the x-axis, which, at first glance, appear to be in rough numerical order, but that doesn’t hold when we see the Buzz group. Maybe a radar or bubble chart would work better—or at least a horizontal bar.