How Do You Turn an Ad Into a Meme? Two Words: Dilly Dilly
It’s much harder today to break through and to connect with that consumer base out there because of all of the multiple options they’re exposed to.”
Still, the fact that Bud Light invests in big-ticket live television events — namely major football
games — offered “dilly dilly” a better chance at viral success, Mr. Henderson said.
Brandon Henderson, a creative director at Wieden & Kennedy, said he realized the phrase might take
off when he saw a student write it on a sign in the background of ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
F John Parker, another creative director, said he thought he had heard something familiar when
he was watching a fourth-quarter play of a “Thursday Night Football” game in November.
The king names each person a “friend of the crown,” then leads the banquet hall in a call-and-response toast in which they all repeat “dilly dilly.” When a man instead smugly presents “a spiced honey mead wine
that I have really been into lately,” he is shuffled off to the “pit of misery.”
The implication is that Bud Light is for you and all of your friends; fancy craft beer is only for yourself.
In 1995, a nation was rapt as three frogs croaked the syllables in “Budweiser.” Four years later, Budweiser
prompted countless television viewers to wag their tongues and ask their friends, “Whassup?”
Since then, the list of commercial catchphrases to earn a cultural foothold has been short.
“Consumers today have so many more options and things to occupy their time,” said Andy Goeler, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing.