Bud Light appeared doomed. The country was falling out of love with beer, the brand’s sales were in a 10-year decline and it had become a brand people loved to hate. Rather than accept reality, we created our own fantasy-world, where everyone loves Bud Light and each execution was a new episode to say and do anything. Dilly Dilly!

It started in 2017 with a big cultural moment: the season premiere of “Game of Thrones” where we launched our medieval world with a spot about bringing beer to a party. When, “Dilly Dilly” was suddenly being shouted at bars and stadiums, we knew we were on to something. We added more chapters to the story during key moments: a wizard whose only job was to turn everything into Bud Light, an epic battle over Bud Light, and many more. At Super Bowl 2019, we partnered with HBO’s “Game of Thrones” to merge our worlds and sacrifice our most beloved character, Bud Knight, as part of the build-up to the show’s final season.

Across the kingdom on social, our King gave pep-talks to playoff-bound NFL teams, we created a special Kentucky Derby hat, and gave a skin to Fortnite icon Ninja, when he wanted to play as Bud Knight. When Lady Bud Knight made her own suit, we immortalized her in a comic book that debuted at Comic Con. Activations brought the idea to the real world, and social mentions were through the roof. When a craft brewer created a “Dilly Dilly IPA” we had a town crier deliver a lighthearted cease and desist scroll at their brewery, and we made good on our bet to reward Philadelphia with free beer. When the Master’s golf tournament banned saying “Dilly Dilly”, we created green gear so people could wear it and share it.

The campaign has successfully started to turn the tide back in Bud Light’s favor by addressing our objectives: Combat the negative conversation and perception of the brand, and generate positive trends in market share indicators.

Key Sales Indicators Up:

? Significant 4 point increase in consideration(1)

? Prior: -3% (Aug ‘17)

? Significant 6.5 point increase in penetration(1)

? Prior: -4.5% (Aug ‘17)

? Morgan Stanley cited “the Dilly Dilly effect” as reason AB InBev gained share for the first time in seven years(2)

Key Brand Imagery Metrics Up:

? Worth up 3%(1)

? Prior: -2% (Aug ‘17)

? High Quality Brand was up 4.5%(1)

? Prior: -2.7% (Aug ‘17)

Positive Shifts in Conversation:

? 24% increase in share of social conversation(3)

? Prior: 44% (Aug ‘17)

? 15% increase in positive sentiment online(3)

? Prior: 48% (Aug ‘17)

? Over 61% of the U.S. adults had heard “Dilly Dilly”(4)

? 2 million Google searches per month (peak)(5)

Sources:

1. Kantar Millward Brown Brand Guidance Program (PG. 1-5)

2. Morgan Stanley Investor Report (PG. 23)

3. Bud Light Social Listening Report (PGS. 6-8)

4. Independent study from CivicScience (PGS. 52-57)

5. Google Search Data (PG. 59)