Dive Brief:
- Anheuser-Busch has yanked a series of videos promoting Bud Light from its YouTube channel and settled a related lawsuit filed by Big Sky Brewing Co. of Missoula, Mont.
- The Bud Light ads used the tagline "Hold my beer and watch this" and featured supposedly humorous scenarios involving beer, including one in which an elderly woman fakes her death.
- Big Sky maintained that it had the trademark for the phrase "hold my beer and watch this." The phrase appears on Big Sky's cans.
- With the videos gone from the Web, Big Sky has dropped its lawsuit. There was no financial settlement made.
Dive Insight:
The videos, made by actor John Krasinski, who played Jim Halpert on "The Office," were apparently quite popular. But A-B InBev says it's ready to move on. "We thought they (the videos) had run their course and right now we're really focused on our Super Bowl advertising that will debut in the game," an executive told members of the press.
Well we have some bad news for the folks at AB-InBev. We own the trademark on the phrase "what is with that ridiculous commercial with that old Terminator dude playing ping pong?"