Dive Brief:
- Bud Light extended its deal as the official beer sponsor of the NFL through 2022, and in the process for the first time gained the rights to use game footage featuring active players in TV ads.
- Bud Light can also create digital-only ads under the same rules.
- Anheuser-Busch InBev paid $1.4 billion to retain Bud Light’s NFL sponsorship for the next four seasons.
Dive Insight:
Renie Anderson, the NFL's senior VP of sponsorship and partnership management, told Ad Age, "We are trying to help them sell beer and they way they can do that is to leverage the NFL to the most avid fans in sports.”
As the official beer sponsor of the NFL, Bud Light ads can feature NFL logos in ads, unlike other beer brands running ads during the games. Allowing Bud Light to use game footage with active players is a first for the NFL, and gives Bud Light an entire new range of marketing assets for its TV and digital ad campaigns.
In a statement, Lucas Herscovici, U.S. VP for consumer connections for Anheuser-Busch InBev, said, "The new and significant assets Bud Light is receiving through this partnership will connect the brand in radically new ways with the sport, its teams and – most importantly – the fans, to drive our business for years to come.”
In other AB InBev news, it and SABMiller received an extension from U.K. regulators to Nov. 11 to finalize the formal terms of AB InBev’s takeover offer.
