Budweiser Renames Itself America. Sure, No Problem

So today brings the news that Budweiser beer will re-brand itself for the summer. Until the 2016 Presidential Election (also re-branded as “The Tournament Of The Lesser Of Two Evils”) the marketing folks behind that beer would like you to call Budweiser “America”.

Good idea, right? Nah.

Look we all have our product preferences. Some people enjoy Budweiser, errr, America beer. Others don’t. We can debate the merits of this particular brand as a beverage, but in the end, if you prefer that, it is what you will drink. But is renaming it after a continent and “The United States Of” that continent a good idea? I have my concerns.

Do we really want to hear, as part of the description of a bad accident, “I think the driver was drunk. The back seat was full of empty America cans”? That doesn’t exactly make me swell up with the patriotism that the folks behind this idea seem to believe will be the automatic result of making this beer a symbol of national pride.

Also pictured, Central & South Budweiser (image public domain)

If the beer takes the name of the geo-political region, must said region return the awkward gesture and take on the name of the beer? I think bureaucratic and navigational havoc will ensue if Mexico, Canada and the United States Of Budweiser are forced to exist on the temporarily named continent of North Budweiser.

Suppose a condom company made a similar move. I’m not sure we’d be comfortable referring to ourselves as Trojans. I’ll leave it to you to consider what our temporary flag would look like.

You might wonder what kind of thinking leads to a move like this. Fortunately, we have a quote from Tosh Hall, part of the creative firm involved in the name change, to clue us in. Before I go on, I should reiterate that Tosh Hall is an oddly named person, not an obscure building on a university campus somewhere.

“We thought nothing was more iconic than Budweiser and nothing was more iconic than America.” – Tosh Hall, 2016

I have no idea what that means. Yet, it concerns me.

If nothing is more iconic than Budweiser AND nothing is more iconic than America, it seems to me that they cancel each other out. Work with me here, think back to middle school English. Remember the double negative? If both are so iconic that they negate the iconic status of all other things, Budweiser and America can not both exist.

So, going by the words of Mr. or Ms. Tosh Hall (who, again, is not a campus building, but if he or she endowed such a building it would be Tosh Hall Hall), I am now a man without a country. My country was not destroyed by war, famine, fire or even the lack of viable governmental leadership. The mutual destruction of the rule of the double negative and the iconic status of a cheap beer is what did us in.

Thanks a lot, Tosh.

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