Bud Light shows value of persistence as Wieden’s ‘dilly dilly’ makes wizard return

For how long can a beer brand stay on top if half the world purportedly hates it? That’s one of the issues facing best-selling Bud Light but agency Weiden+Kennedy seems to have found a way of postponing nemesis – thanks to a thoroughly daft catch phrase.

20 or so years ago Bud Light cause a stir in adland and the wider world with its ‘Whassup’ campaign, a raucous celebration of maleness. Now it’s the rather more fey (even somewhat English) ‘dilly dilly,’ supposedly a Game of Thrones send-up.

This is the first of what Bud Light owner AB InBev calls, rather grandly, a “trilogy” of commercials which will culminate in a Super Bowl ad on February 4.

Actually the campaign has improved since it began in 2017, this one steered by the winningly world-weary wizard, having to humour these idiots who’d sooner have Bud Light than eternal life.

A timely reminder that sticking with your creative agency can pull off the unlikeliest of tricks (W+K’s first Presidential election-themed campaign for Bud Light was terrible).

MAA creative scale: 7.