This is totally off topic.

I hate Budweiser, or any AB product for that matter. I’ve made no secret of that. And I don’t want it held against me when I say AB is either the stupidest company in the history of companies or the biggest liar ever. If I were to pick one, I’d go for the latter.

Take a gander at this story on Boston.com today: “Anheuser-Busch pulls ‘water’ drinking game”

Ok. Do I really need to spell this out? How dumb can they possibly be?

Let’s see if I can get this straight: They develop a promotion called “bud pong” and have it played by trying to bounce a ping-pong ball into the glass full of liquid owned by their opponent. If one accomplishes said feat, the opponent must drink the liquid in said glass.

This is a Bud promotion, right? So what would Bud want you to put in the glass? Well, they’re explicit about that. Water, that’s what. Water. For a beer promotion. For a beer promotion based entirely on a game that, before branded as “Bud Pong”, was called BEER PONG and was a well known DRINKING GAME to anyone who went to college (or for that matter High School) between, say, 1995 to present. There’s even a Nation Beer Pong League.

So, somehow AB thought people would play this with WATER? Why not milk? Or OJ? Or coke? Hell, maybe Hayes and I should start playing it with his Alimentum.

Idiots.

Meanwhile the FCC is cracking down on swearing on the radio and tv. Gee, that might hurt our… uhm… sensibilities?

AB, on the other hand, will likely come through this unscathed. I mean, they had no idea that anyone would ever play the game with beer in the glass instead of water?! The directions of game explicitly state to play it with water, so why would anyone disregard the instructions? Until now, no one has ever not listened to instructions!

Everyone involved in this promotion should be fired. Fired. That’s how strongly I feel about it. I LOVE beer. Love it. Just don’t loosely veil a promotion based on a well known binge drinking game but change the liquid from beer to water and then act dismayed when people play it how it has always been played.

The bottom line is always AB’s bottom line: How do they sell more beer. I know how the beer industry thinks, I worked in marketing for a well known beer company for three years. It’s all about getting people to drink more beer. So, when your new promotion is to steal the rules from a beer drinking game, but play it with water, what are they trying to do? We all know the answer to that. The better question is: did anyone actually EVER play it with water?

There should be consequences for this type of blatant lying and/or stupidity. AB, do you get me? Government, are you listening? When people drink too much, people die. No one could ever say that about swearing.