For Americans and American Football enthusiasts, Super Bowl is a time of happiness and elation. A time for them to enjoy the matches played amongst the various teams and show unconditional love to their favorite ones. It’s also a time for brands to come out guns a-blazing and get maximum awareness and reach from the viewers. However, the 2019 Super Bowl was a little different.
During the 2019 Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light used the Super Bowl to name and shame its rivals Miller Lite and Coors Light for using corn syrup (an additive in food products known for its increase in the obesity epidemic) as a fermentable sugar to brew their beer through a commercial.
The Game Of Thrones-esque commercial ‘Special Delivery’ showcased a particular delivery of corn syrup accidentally being delivered at the wrong kingdom. The Bud Light King sets on a long journey to return the corn syrup to the castles of both Miller Lite and Coors Light, which both use corn syrup in their brewing processes.
The commercial gained much backlash from the corn industry as well as Miller Lite and Coors Light. Instead of either brand coming up with a campaign or a social media post to hit back at Bud Light, MillerCoors -the U.S. subsidiary of Molson Coors which owns both Miller Lite and Coors Lite- filed a lawsuit against AB InBev for deceptive advertising practices. MillerCoors eventually won the verdict in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The ruling stated that a “reasonable jury could find that the implicit message of the (Bud Light) packaging is that other beers contain corn syrup.”
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