Dive Brief:
- Some 1,000 people who were flown to Crested Butte, CO, as part of marketing stunt by Bud Light experienced travel delays and frustration when the party ended.
- Dozens voiced their complaints on social media as delays at the local airport resulted in missed connections home for many of the winners of the "Whatever, USA" contest.
- Exactly what went wrong is unclear. A private company had been contracted to expedite security screening, but federal TSA agents wound up stepping in as delays grew.
Dive Insight:
The travel snafus and social-media anger are just the latest in bad press to come out of the Whatever campaign. Many residents of Crested Butte made no secret of their distaste for the contest and its efforts to remake the mountain town into .... you know, whatever, like a mountain town but it has like a really giant cowboy boot in it and a really giant director's chair, and like, you know, whatever, dude.
But it's fitting that the campaign, which centered on the idea that Bud Light drinkers were #UpForWhatever, ended by showing that the contest winners were in fact up for no such thing. These weren't adventure travelers, they were extras in a television commercial who expected a carefully scripted production of entertainment and VIP treatment, not, you know, whatever.