What do you do when it comes down to the last beer between you and your friend? This instant classic Bud Light commercial begins with two friends at a party reaching for the last beer in an ice-filled cooler at the same time. Faced with the moral dilemma of who should get the bottle, one friend-“Dark Hair”-asks, “Okay, now what?” The other-“Blue Shirt”-suggests they play Rock, Paper, Scissors for it. They agree to a three count. As they reach three, Dark Hair throws out his hand . . . and Blue Shirt throws a rock, hitting Dark Hair directly in the forehead. Dark Hair falls to the ground, gingerly sits up part way, declaring in a shaky voice, “I threw paper.” Blue shirt casually walks off, replying in cool nonchalance, “I threw a rock.” The screen changes to a shot of a bottle of Bud Light being poured; an announcer states over the image, “Refreshingly smooth Bud Light . . . Always worth it.” We go back to Dark Hair, who lays on the ground reaching out for assistance; a fellow party guest passes by, notices his outstretched hand, and smacks it as he declares, “Low five” and leaves Dark Hair to moan both in the agony of his pain and, one can only assume, the loss of his Bud Light.
This commercial does more than advertise an alcoholic beverage; it throws into the balance one of our favorite means of deciding anything that’s tied between a couple of pals. Rock, Paper, Scissors has been played many a time between a friend and myself to make a few menial decisions. I don’t think, though, that any of those friends or I have ever considered taking the game a little more literally. Viewers may or may not have seen the rock-throw coming. Whether one saw it coming or not, the gag touches one aspect of our culture that will always hit-yes, pun intended-our funny bones: slapstick. The commercial takes its humor a step further in the after-moment of the low five. The general nonchalance of the fellow party goers to the fallen man’s pain is enough to elicit a chuckle in and of itself. The casual manner in which Dark Hair’s comrade walks off with his “fairly” won beer garnered some major laughs at the Super Bowl party I attended. Yet the moment in the commercial that earned itself the most laughs was, indeed, the casualness of the low five that followed the marketers’ tag line.
So, how far will you now be willing to go to get your favorite beverage? As they say, all’s fair in . . . well, love and war, but let’s face it; Blue Shirt’s love of his beverage was enough to get him to do what it took to win the battle over it, so I’d say the saying still applies! As the commercial tells us . . . it’s “always worth it!”
View the commercial here:
