Budweiser Has A Patriotic New Name

Budweiser, with the backdrop of probably the most insane election ever and the upcoming jingoism overload called “the Olympics,” is renaming its flagship beer “America.” Yes, really. The company will perform a total rebrand, replacing almost all the Budweiser-related text and insignia on their can with messages relating to America, according to a Fast Company report. "We thought nothing was more iconic than Budweiser and nothing was more iconic than America," Tosh Hall, who creative directs the Budweiser cans at branding firm JKR, tells Fast Company. Things that are more iconic than Budweiser include Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and drinking literally anything other than Budweiser. It’s tough to rank the iconography of countries, but we’d definitely agree that America is in the top five. For sure top 10. The cans and bottles are a continuation of Budweiser’s branding strategy of putting American insignia on their beverage vessels, which the Anheuser-Busch InBev subsidiary has done every summer since 2011. The only change now is that the redesign will run through the November elections. InBev is the result of a 2004 merger between a Brazilian and Belgian company. So, apparently, America is Brazilian and Belgian. Moving on. Fast Company lists some updates to the labeling: “‘King of Beers’ has been changed to ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ ‘The World Renowned’ changed to ‘Land of the Free,’ and ‘Anheuser-Busch, Inc.’ updated to read ‘Liberty & Justice For All’ Even legalese like ‘Trademark’ was changed to ‘Indivisible,’ and ‘Registered’ changed to ‘Since 1776.’” Budweiser was founded in 1876, but trivial things like “facts” and “not conflating the history of a country with a mass market larger” are speed bumps on the great highway of Branding. America did its part to lean into the association when the National Parks Service signed a two year, $2.5 million marketing agreement with Anheuser-Busch InBev. That agreement required waiving a statute specifying that the Parks Service wouldn’t accept advertising dollars from alcohol or tobacco manufacturers. When you get a chance to slap the Statue of Liberty on a Budweiser, we guess you just can’t say no.