Only One Super Bowl Ad Rolls Back the TARP

Sure, a few Super Bowl ads gingerly touched on our recession, offering Cash4Gold here and a free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's there. But only one spot, taking aim at the elephants in the boardroom, came anywhere close to explaining the matter.

These people may be buzzed, but didn't they just raise the possibility of cutting back on marketing and killing bonuses, and then, with Bank of America finesse, pointedly ignore the idea?

The conventional beer ad antics that tell you to take everything as a joke (and The Office ambience, with the Pam look-alike) almost obscures it, but this spot not-so-subtly mocks corporate America's refusal to even recognize two of the issues underlying our economic nightmare: our high-consumption, planet-destroying way of life, nursed by marketing and advertising, is unsustainable; and the obscene bonuses paid by taxpayer-bailed-out companies are only the most blatant sign of class inequality.

Meanwhile, the average guy--who's cutting back on the small pleasures that make life more bearable, like a brewsky, because he doesn't have the dough--gets the boot.

Nope, Budweiser isn't a secret socialist symp. (Hardly. When giant Belgium brewer InBev bought Anheiser-Busch for $52 billion last year, it made Budweiser-distributor Cindy McCain many more millions, and, just seven weeks ago, it gave the boot to 1,400 workers.) But Bud's marketing department does have to identify and massage the concerns of the regular guy. And when this ad hit the focus groups, said Bob Lachky, Anheuser-Busch's chief creative officer, it "tested extremely well."

So you might as well drink on the job--as long as you have one.

Comments (4)

1. "But Bud's marketing department does have to identify and massage the concerns of the regular guy."

   posted by Leslie Savan on 02/02/2009 @ 9:15pm

   Yeah, that bud is on par with molsoncoorsschlemdrivel and is actually a real frickin beer, which it isn't.

   Posted by Benchrest at 02/02/2009 @ 10:03pm

2. Two articles.

   By two writers for "The Nation".

   Both females (Leslie Savan, Laura Flanders).

   On the socio-political impact....

   of a Super Bowl ad (Bud Light, GE).

   Ah.....ha. Okay.

   Posted by Mask at 02/02/2009 @ 10:31pm

3. I kind of liked the send up that a rubber monkey did of the whole super bowl thing.... youtube.com/watch?v=0rAj2rQZ8RU

   Posted by normanx at 02/03/2009 @ 08:30am

4. Catch the drivel by Barney Frank last night on getting money back that has been fraudulently spent by TARP recipients?

   This is just more crap from this little worm. Any uncorrupted judge in the world can see and would rule that this fraudulent spending violates the intent of TARP.

   We need to get after these criminals, but we are apparently only to get lip service from politicians such as the ridiculous pat on the ass bill sponsored by McCaskill.

   Posted by OneVote at 02/03/2009 @ 1:02pm