Whassup in 2008?

One catchphrase that I never thought would come back, besides use by Michael Scott in the Office, is Budweiser's "Whassup" slogan. It has indeed resurfaced again, this time with political relevance as a promotional ad for Obama.

The video visits the Whassup guys 8 years after their debut on TV and shows what they are up to now. One just lost his house, one is in Iraq, one needs health care, and one is watching his stocks drop. This is obviously trying to reach out to all of the different issues in the election.

The Effect
So far the video has over 2.5 million views on YouTube. It has circled around on numerous blogs and was featured in the Wall Street Journal today.

Will this have any impact on how people vote? Probably not. It is more so a clever way to bring back a catchphrase that died out 7 years ago. There have been thousands of political videos on YouTube parodying other videos, songs, and movies. This is just one of the more well done and creative spots.


On a side note, I hate when companies or individuals representing their company shout out their personal opinion on politics via their blog or twitter. Below is a humorous video promoting Obama. Here is a humorous article favoring McCain from The Onion.

Advertising vs. PR

With the daily increase in ads that I see and the news of NBC locking up over $1 billion in ad revenue for the Olympics, it got me thinking -- is advertising worth it?

Many ad campaigns have generated a considerable amount of public appeal, but they fail to do the one thing they are supposed to: increase sales.

Some notable campaigns:

- Got Milk campaign. Hugely popular and famous campaign. Did milk sales increase? Nope. They continued to fall year after year since the campaign.

- Yo quiero Taco Bell. Remember that campaign with the dog? Massively popular and parodied, but it didn't increase sales. The agency behind the ad campaign was also fired.

- Whassup? Arguably one of the most popular ad campaigns in the last 20 years, but sales of Budweiser have been declining steadily. They went from 50 million barrels in 1990 to less than 35 million in 2000. Bud Light has been doing well without the Whaasup campaign.

I'm not saying that advertising is never effective, but I believe it is widely overspent and often irresponsibly. Advertising should be used to defend a brand and keep it relevant.

PR should be used to build the brand. Often times companies try to build a brand/product through advertising alone.

More thoughts on this to come. For a more in-depth look at advertising and PR, check out this great book.