Someone comes over with a 12 pk of Bud..... right on ..thanks dude!!!!
coolness*

Speaking as a man sporting long sideburns and thick, dark framed glasses, I'm skeptical that a new marketing campaign is going to make gains with the hipster crowd. When I think of bud I think of superbowl ads, racing car ads, rodeo, bud girls and that whole macho American world of bullshit that I've learned to tune out because of its aesthetic and social irrelevance to me.

Speaking of irrelevance, perhaps that should be the new pitch... position it as the most completely absurd choice for hipsters - iconoclasm *beyond* iconoclasm. Whatever. It's a whole lot better and less achingly transparent than having the "new and improved" Bud Girls w/ their tattoos and their Betty Page meets American Apparel outfits turing up the local hipster roller derby rally/ fixed gear bike love-in / art show / poetry slam / knitting bee / spelling bee.

A brief diversion... I live in the Texas of Canada (Alberta) and I used to wait tables at a beef 'n' beer style steakhouse and I've served a lot of Bud and Molson Canadian over the years. At one point, we started serving Czechvar - a Czech beer that is actually named Budweiser Budvar, but due to a trademark dispute, it is sold around the world as Czechvar. I've also heard that this beer provided the template for the Bud brewed in the USA - and regardless of whether or not it's true, I used to tell them this whenever anyone ordered a Bud, in attempt to get them to try it.

I was amazed that while people liked the story, many were simply uninterested in trying it at all - and that in the end, just about everyone who tried one, wound up ordering a regular ol' Bud for their next one.

I think that in a way, this is Bud's problem. I perceive Bud drinkers as conservative men ("traditional" might be a more charitable word that a veteran beverage industry consultant might prefer) in their tastes and lifestyles - and Bud drinkers likely perceive me as just another hipster doofus with a faggy beard who's stupid enough to pay twice as much for craft brewed beer made by commies and hippies. Why fuck with the magic?

My final word on this is... if you were buying beer for you and a lady friend, would you buy Bud? I know I wouldn't.

in a Large tumbler.....
2 Mickeys; small can of V-8; salt & pepper; worteshire; &tabasco= what i call..... a "Bloody Mickey"
Great for a morning wake-up!!!!

Bud Man stickers, yeah. But Spuds? yeesh.

It's not that good, the company that owns them treats its workers poorly, and it's tied with the near monopoly of the big distributors. What's not to not like? If anyone wants to know more about beer in America, watch Beer Wars. It's conveniently streamable on Netflix.

Price? $2.00/$2.50 for a Lone Star or Pabst Tall Boy vs $3.00/$3.50 for a Budweiser. I mean theres the Texas Lone Star Beer regional loyalty thing, Pabst is just cheap, same for Miller High Life, but they are also 'retro'. Budweiser in modern times represents 'corporate beer'. My suggestion? Sponsor hipster events? The kids are lovin' their fixed gear bikes these days maybe sponsor one of their events or add them in the commercials, you know, acting cool and nerdy giving each other hi-fives, make bandanas, bring back the logo bucket hat, break out those neon colored Ray Bans, bring back Spuds or even Bud Man............................or just lower the price. Then theres this: http://beerwarsmovie.com/trailer/large/

Of course it's 7 bucks. They can cahrge that at the New york Dolls or X, in Hollywood no less.

But I don't buy that "I'm old" stuff. I was just talking about that on ****book and mentioned my friend who was still going to 5 buck shows in his 60s. But he drank pisswater. He didn't care. He only stopped going a month before he passed on.

i've got a 12 pk of pbr in the fridge... i just fininished off the miller high life!!!....Ice cold....there all good....
when ther COLD!!
at shows.... most beers cost......7 bucks.... Last show i was at was N.y. Dolls & X....Hollywood.......ahhhhhhhh!!!!!
i only go to a special show ....now an then.......... im older ... i sit back and Listen to old records...
and grt a Lil drunk in the safty of my home!!!!

I drink Pabst when I'm out because it's a dollar 50 cheaper. But since I've had to cut back and keep it to 2 or 3 beers at a show, I've switched back to Bud because it does taste better than Pabst. Except for Henry's and Labattes, I can't stand other beers. There's always an off taste to them. Miller and Rolling Rock in general. Like they add salt or something. Bud has a nice clean taste.

YOu need more rock and roll and guys like Peacock in the ads. Emphasize the nice clean flavor and make it look sexy, like a chick wants to kiss a guy who drinks a nice clean beer with no after taste. And convince King Kahn that he's not selling out just because he's doing a Budweiser ad. ; )

where i have Lived and worked... Bud has always been the beer of joice... w/ the Latino community!!!
the mexican guys come in, after a hard days work and pick up a cold pk of Bud!
my Mexican girlfriend says it gives her a headache.... she buys the more x-pensive stuff..(Stella).....
i buy what evers on sale!!....

I may be getting out of the demographic at 39 but for me Budweiser is the drink of your dad if he is a redneck mechanic. The reason the kids are drinking PBR and High Life is because you can get it for a dollar at the local hipster hang out. If I'm going to pay more I am going to buy a local craft beer with flavor.

Budweiser is what normal, decent people drink (aka "hot" country music fans, Republicans, Baptists when there not in from of other Baptists, etc). It's seen as beer for the masses. What tatooed hipster wants to be a mass, another face in the crowd? They want to be individuals and stand apart (I'm reminded of the old Steve Martin routine: "Hey everybody, let's all take the non-conformist oath! All together now; "I promise to be different...").

Why don't I drink Budweiser? If I want to drink tons, I'll get PBR, Stag, Old Milwaukee, etc that's noticably cheaper. If I want just a couple, I'll get a "real" beer; an import or micro/craft beer. To me, Bud (and the majority of A-B) is neither one thing or the other.

Maybe it's just that "Budweiser taste." Even the fancypants beers like American Ale, etc that are ... ok, taste like Budweiser mixed with a "good beer."

I also thin some people are alergic to Budweiser brands. If I had a dollar for everytime I heard someone say that A-B products give them an instant headache, I couldn't run and jump the stack of money.

Please read this article (below) and comment... I realize Budweiser isn't the most popular brand among the young, tattooed, rock'n'roll crowd (which is the point of the article), but how can they make inroads into that crowd? Just looking for some honest thoughts, ideas, suggestions.

I mean, seriously, what makes people like this drink beer like PBR, Stag or Miller High Life over a brand like Budweiser?

Why this is important to me: The marketing company I work for works closely with Anheuser-Busch, so they are honestly looking for ideas. I thought I'd post this here to see what you guys thought. :)

Thanks!

Article link w/ photos, comments

Text:

Can Budweiser, the King of Beers, reign again?
BY TODD C. FRANKEL • tfrankel@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8110 | Posted: Friday, August 20, 2010 12:15 am

ST. LOUIS • They don't serve Budweiser at the Bleeding Deacon. No need. Customers never ask for the King of Beers at this South City bar and restaurant, says owner Mike
McLaughlin.

McLaughlin's place attracts a young, hip crowd. Tattoos are common. So are T-shirts from thrift stores. The menu is eclectic, ranging from veggie flatbread to homemade meatloaf. The music leans toward indie rock, like The Pixies song playing one recent night.

It's not snobbery that keeps Budweiser off the bar's blackboard listing of 60 or so brews. Plenty of Miller High Life and Pabst Blue Ribbon moves. But the demand for Budweiser simply is not there.

"Budweiser is not a bad beer," explains McLaughlin, 32, his arms heavily inked. "It's just not a very good brand."

Anheuser-Busch knows it has a Budweiser problem. The beer's share of the U.S. market peaked in 1988 at 26 percent, sinking to 9.3 percent last year. Even more troubling for A-B is that Budweiser seems at risk of being forgotten by an entire generation. Four out of 10 people in their mid-20s have never even tried Budweiser — a rate 2.5 times higher than when it reigned supreme, according to the company.

But A-B is betting big it can persuade young beer drinkers to once again order a Budweiser, and thus get inside the door of places like the Bleeding Deacon.

"We've drawn a line in the sand," A-B President Dave Peacock said earlier this week during a talk at the KMOX/Business Owners Speakers Series.

Peacock admitted he wakes up each morning nervous about his pledge to revive the Budweiser brand in its home market. "We have a big target on my back," he said, with a slight laugh.

And yet, Budweiser consistently ranks as one of the most popular brands in the world. One of the main reasons Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev wanted to buy A-B was Budweiser. And the merged Anheuser-Busch InBev brewery has found success selling Budweiser overseas, in places such as Great Britain and China. Last week, the company cheerfully reported that Budweiser sales were "essentially flat" in the second quarter, thanks to global sales that compensated for Budweiser's weak performance in the United States.

But gaining traction at home has proven difficult. "We know we have a lot of work to do, especially in the United States," said A-B InBev chief marketing officer Chris Burggraeve during a recent analysts' conference call. "But I can assure you that we're energized and completely committed to stabilizing the brand in its home market."

That task falls to Peacock, head of the A-B InBev's U.S. operations.

Peacock, standing on stage at Maryville University, sounded indignant when a question from the audience cast doubt on how Budweiser could be saved. The questioner was a man who appeared to be in his 20s, his sideburns long and his eyeglasses fashionable dark frames — precisely the kind of drinker that Budweiser wants to win back. But the man said he doesn't see Budweiser being consumed when he's out. He sees craft beer.

Peacock got passionate in his defense of Budweiser. It wins blind taste tests again and again, he said. "It is the perfect liquid," he said, allowing that to sink in, then adding, "I don't say that out of arrogance."


The problem, according to Peacock, is the image. A-B has not effectively used the brand's best qualities to market the beer. Budweiser has been brewed with the same yeast strain since 1876. It is the only one that is beechwood-aged, which helps with fermentation.

"We have just as good a story as they do," he said, referring to the craft brews that tend to harp on their craftsmanship and history. "We just have been remiss in explaining that."

It's not like A-B forgot how to sell beer in America. The company continues to produce almost half the beer sales in the U.S., cultivating numerous successful brands  uch as Bud Light, which is now the country's best-selling beer. Budweiser, however, continues to be a befuddling exception.

Peackock admitted the marketing gimmicks of the 1990s — the Budweiser frogs and ants — were a mistake, cheapening the brand's image. A new series of lighthearted, but not silly, Budweiser ads now running on TV are aimed at young male drinkers. One shows different ways to carry Budweiser bottles from the bar to the table. Another highlights the various ways young men say hello to each other.

But Budweiser's considerable history — a strong selling point — also threatens to hold it back.

Peacock mentioned company testing of changes to the iconic Budweiser label that found consumers strongly against doing anything, no matter how small. He said even consumers who hated Budweiser didn't want anyone to mess with the label. Peacock said he was moved to wonder, "Why don't you buy it if you're so passionate about it?"

He also recalled that after the A-B InBev merger in 2008, he was approached by people upset that A-B and Budweiser were being bought by a foreign company. He sounded flummoxed. "If you bought more (Budweiser), it probably wouldn't have sold," he said he told them.

Outside the company, there is doubt that Budweiser can be revived.

Craig Hutson, beverage analyst with Gimme Credit, said he was "guarded" that A-B could pull it off. He would have the company focused on growing Budweiser in foreign markets.

Tom Pirko, a veteran beverage industry consultant, said Budweiser's troubles were part of a trademark's natural life cycle. The brand is stale. "The brand is in the midst of an identity crisis. It is feeling the ravages of time," he said.

Budweiser needs a major makeover, a way to convince a new generation that Budweiser has something to offer beyond contributions to history, Pirko said. "Their problem, I think, is a bravery question. Is there a willingness to take risks with an established brand?" he said.

Peacock declined to share A-B's emerging strategy for Budweiser, citing competitive concerns.

Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer," said she thinks a renewed emphasis on Budweiser's strong heritage would be effective: "Bud as the original craft beer." But, she added, the brewer has been undercutting its efforts with humorous messages.

Back at the Bleeding Deacon, McLaughlin said he saw a way forward for Budweiser — A-B must sell the beer using its working class, traditionalist roots and stop "marketing it like it was fruit juice."

And Budweiser has one thing on its side, he noted.

"No one else has got a good beer that is over 130 years old."

cheers!

Hey, thanks for letting us know Laura. I'll check it out!

Very cool, thanks for the heads-up!

http://www.junkfooddinner.com

 

 

my friends do this badass podcast that's all about cult, b, horror, obscure, and strange movies. its funny, and entertaining, and i'm sure there's some movies of there you might recognize. or maybe some one's that you've heard about but have never seen. so go to
www.junkfooddinner.com
and check out all their podcasts. they also have a facebook page if you do that sort of thing. you can suggest movies for them to do on the show, and they're always looking for more rare and weird movies!!

i do the openings for the show, and was on #20, the rape revenge themed episode.

 

Let us know what you think, and suggest some rare and weird movies!!

a shot or two.... at the bar is ok.... dont Drive!!!! .... dont buy a bottle of the Shit!!!!

I enjoy tequila but I've never gotten naked drunk of it or any other liquor unless other substances were involved. Maybe I'm not applying myself and should make a greater effort. I believe there are different kinds of buzzes but I don't think tequila makes me any more wild than the next booze. The only thing close to a barking at the moon tequila freakout was when I had two shots of what I was told was absinthe. I don't know if it was like the original or the newer approximation (synthetic? absynth?) but I was both psychedelicized and zombified!

no pants, check! window broken,ckeck! head exploding,check!
.well yes pretty much the same except for the deafness bought about by letting off guns in the back yard at four in the morning "blanks i might add not live rounds, this is the uk".

agree, everytime i look at my book collection i smile like an idiot, why lose that in the name of convenience? tried to read e-books at work (so it would look like i m working :-) but it gives me a headache, if i read more than 5 "pages" i think i ll get an epileptic seizure. cant get used to it. and i dont want to. and how can you read an e-book in the bathtub, wouldn't it feel really really wrong? and if everybody in the bus and in the subway would read e-books you couldn't play the spy-over-the-pages-or-take-a-look-at-the-cover-and-guess-what-kind-of-person-they-are-game. to hell with e-books! Doc Sanchez said:

As a collector, I really love to show off with all the books on my shelves (although I haven't read half of them yet). Even though I got used to digital music, I'm totally and completely against this e-book stuff. I can't really say why, and it sure may have advantages, but still, books are books, they have a tradition that's hundrets of years old, they smell like books (I love the smell of a new book, and I'm always a bit scared that a second hand book may stink, but that's just part of the pleasure), I love to run my fingers over the sides of the pages while reading (one time, I read a second choice book that had some scratches on its back and was over 1000 pages long, and in the end I really missed feeling these scratches beneath my fingers when I finished this book and began another one), I love to go through unsorted heaps of books at second hand bookshops, and I'm even proud of the way-too-heavy boxes of books when I have to move.

And by the way, if you're in bed, lying on your back while reading, and you fall asleep, an e-book will hurt your nose when it falls on your face. Paper still is softer (except you're reading the Encyclopedia Britannica or something like that).

So no, no e-books for me...

I wanted to post about my newest obsession, corkball!

Corkball is a St. Louis variation of the game of stickball that has been around since the 1890s. Legend has it that corkball was born at Mueller's, a boardinghouse and saloon at Grand Boulevard and Greer Avenue in North St. Louis. The year was 1890, and the story is that some members of the St. Louis Browns — an American Association team that a few years later would be rechristened the Cardinals in the National League — were sitting on the porch at Mueller's polishing off a keg of brew. Chris Von der Ahe, a colorful saloonkeeper who called himself "Der Poss Bresident," owned the team, which featured a player who would go on to become a baseball legend. He was Charley Comiskey, founder of the Chicago White Sox.

Comiskey might have been there the night that one of the players took the bung out of the keg, carved it into the shape of a ball, while another Brownie found a broom handle for a bat. They set the ground rules: One would be a pitcher, the other a catcher, with the remaining three playing the outfield. Like Indian ball, there was no running.

Eventually, the game evolved into organized leagues and manufactured equipment. For a time, the corkballs — like mini baseballs, slightly larger than golf balls — and slender bats used in the game were made by Rawlings Sporting Goods. Rawlings, based in St. Louis, dropped the line years ago, and now Markwort Sporting Goods on Forest Park Boulevard carries on the tradition. The game became so popular that leagues sprouted up at taverns, where cages were erected, but eventually, most of the play moved to city or county parks.

My dad played corkball. I remember there being a corkball bat and ball at home when I was growing up, but the only time I remember it being played was at our annual Kopp family reunions (where we also played a variation called bottle caps... basically the same thing, but instead of corkballs you used bottle caps!).

Leagues such as Gateway Corkball (est. 1929), South St. Louis (1936), Sportsman's (1957), and Santa Maria or Lemay Corkball still exist and even participate in an annual "World Series of Corkball" called the Don Young Corkball Tournament at Jefferson Barracks Park each August.

Corkball's popularity has faded, but it's still played at several St. Louis-area parks. I head up my own "River City Corkball Club" and we play on Wednesday evenings at Tower Grove Park.

I also run a website for the sport at PlayCorkball.com that contains all sorts of articles & information (including rules, field diagrams, etc.). Please check it out and join us if you're interested in starting a club or league in your town! Click this link to buy some corkball equipment online.

Cheers,
kopper

It's not so much an ugly body style as just a forgettable body style. In fact, thinking about it now, I can't remember what it looks like (see? I forgot!), but you never forget what the Challengers, Camaros or Mustangs look like. I just think GM should've done a better job with the design, especially if they were going to revive a classic line like that. Ford and Dodge did it right with the new Mustangs & Challengers.

Anyway, you should post a pic! Refresh my memory. ;)

Here's what I have been working on. Took a '36 ford 5 window and turning it into a 3-window coupe that will have westaguard look of the '40s once done. Here is a link to the photobucket account that has the build up so far.

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r52/checkeredstrip/?start=all

Greetings,