Great Beer Ads and Why They Work
At System1, our Test Your Ad Premium database has over 125,000 ads, giving us incredible insight into what works well for your category. Today, we’re tapping into beer advertising to understand what greatness looks like and how you can brew up your own brand-building creative.
The beer category is brimming with entertaining and memorable ads, just like it’s overflowing with innovation. Budweiser has long invested in its Clydesdales and the brands’ “Whassup?” and frogs campaigns from the 1990s also made their mark. In the US, many beer brands use the Super Bowl as an opportunity to get their products in front of millions of viewers, a tactic that is increasingly important as more people adopt low or no-alcohol lifestyles. Learn more about what it’s like to support multiple brands in the Super Bowl via this Uncensored CMO episode featuring Marcel Marcondes, CMO of AB InBev.
Additionally, there’s a rich history of great beer slogans too, from Carlsberg’s “Probably the Best Lager in the World” to Dos Equis’ “I Don’t Always Drink Beer. but When I Do…” to Heineken’s “Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach.”
What’s the recipe for success? Read on to discover the incredible craft of beer advertising.
Entertain for Commercial Gain
The central truth of ad effectiveness is that you must entertain for commercial gain. In order to accomplish this, it’s important to understand the different ways in which advertising can attract attention and the different types of people that advertising can engage. System1 Chief Innovation Officer Orlando Wood outlines these principles in his books Lemon and Look out as well as his course Advertising Principles Explained.
Jokes, cultural references, wordplay and other elements attract the “broad-beam” attention of the brain’s right hemisphere. These creative elements, as well as others like human communication, betweenness and melodic soundtracks you can sing and hum, are brand-building tools because they catch the broad-beam attention and get brands noticed by people who aren’t yet customers. The majority of consumers are not currently in the market for your product, so let right-brained creative features be your key to driving mental availability. This allows your brand to come to mind quickly and easily when consumers are ready to make a purchase.
The second type of attention – “narrow-beam” – is overseen by the left hemisphere of the brain. It is more oriented toward specific goals and tasks, like buying a particular brand of beer. Prominent, distinctive branding that makes it obvious your product is available and makes it easier to buy works well in bars and shops, for instance. In TV advertising, left-brained creative features would include close-ups of the product itself, which breaks the whole into smaller parts, voiceovers, words on the screen, repetitive rhythmic soundtracks and adjectives used as nouns, like ‘refreshing is your new obsession.’ This type of advertising works well on those who already have an interest in your product, helping to drive short-term sales uplift among those targeted consumers.
But to create the positive mental associations that make your brand feel like a good choice and drive long-term market share growth, you need to capture the broad-beam attention of the many, not the narrow-beam attention of the few. Entertaining, emotional work that makes people feel is a must.
With this in mind, let’s hop over to six themes that have consistently delivered strong, memorable beer ads.
Bottling Up Beer Ad Themes
Get a taste of six themes that help beer ads entertain:
Characters
Characters give ads a focal point and build brand recognition without compromising on entertainment. Some beer brands have shied away from characters, as there are strict regulations in many markets about using characters which might appeal to kids to sell alcohol. That being said, they can be done and done well.
Dos Equis’ “The Most Interesting Man in the World” is a great example of a distinctive character with agency that became a popular early internet meme. Another that’s struck gold is the Bud Knight and his King, with the idiotically catchy “Dilly Dilly!” slogan. Meaningless but addictive, and the perfect character and slogan for a brand with bro appeal. “Dilly Dilly!” created confusion at first, but then people loved it—so much so that the brand grabbed headlines when they announced they were killing him off.
Scenarios
In some cases, the set-up and characters vary per ad, but the punchline is the same. This is called a scenario fluent device. It’s rare to find beer brands using recurring scenarios in recent years, despite them being a common tactic in some of the greatest beer campaigns of all time. Heineken’s “Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Can’t Reach” is a great example from the 1980s, as is Carlsberg’s “We don’t do… but if we did…” spots from the 90s.
Humor
Humor is often leveraged in beer advertising for its ability to drive intense, positive feelings in audiences, which contributes to both short- and long-term business effects. Humor is often delivered via topical cultural references and over-the-top situations (like Post Malone’s cul-de-sac party during Super Bowl LIX).
Boston Beers’ Sam Adams brand made one of the most entertaining and effective beer ads of recent years when they teamed up with robotics firm Boston Dynamics for their 2022 Super Bowl ad. System1 worked closely with the brand to pre-test the ad and offer guidance on how to make it most effective.
Animals
Many categories use cute animals to delight viewers. Beer ads haven’t used them as often—partly for regulatory reasons—as beer commercials don’t want to be seen as appealing to anyone below the legal drinking age. But of course, there are a few exceptions, like the aforementioned Clydesdales, which land on the list of top-scoring beer ads of all time, recapped by Uncensored CMO podcast host Jon Evans and his guest Mark Ritson.
Also consider Carlsberg’s “The Seal,” which demonstrates the brand’s commitment to sustainable policies with the help of a cute seal. What makes the ad work isn’t just the cuteness, or the sustainability initiatives, it’s the fact that Carlsberg openly acknowledges how unusual it is to feature an animal like this in a beer ad.
Camaraderie
Many beer ads also celebrate friendship and camaraderie. After all, many beers are enjoyed together at the pub or around the TV while watching football (American and English!). This doesn’t have to be all-male camaraderie, though often it is, as exemplified by the four men racing to keep their beer from spilling in Carlton Beer’s “Beer Chase” which encouraged viewers to associate their beer with friendship and bonding.
Michelob ULTRA’s 2023 and 2025 Super Bowl ads did a great job of putting female stars at the forefront, with Serena Williams joining other celebrity friends for a golf outing, and actress Catherine O’Hara engaging in an intense pickleball tournament with Willem Defoe (view the Test Your Ad report). Competition and camaraderie unite!
Storytelling
Narratives are at the heart of right-brained advertising and a common theme in beer ads. Some of these stories may be tall tales, others may be more sentimental. But every story relies on at least one of the aforementioned themes – a strong character, a funny punchline or scenario, a cute animal or a celebration of friendship. In addition to characters, stories also rely on place (an evocative location) and incident (what happens – hopefully something interesting and entertaining!).
The beer category is full of great examples, including the most recent Super Bowl ad from Budweiser, taking viewers on the journey of a young Clydesdale’s attempt at his first beer delivery.
Create with Confidence
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