Advertisements can be defined by the following: A company depicts their product in the very best way possible, as to gain the attention of potential customers to generate revenue for their business. Now, it is wise of a company to generate ads that appeal to the vast majority of people, and this includes using plain language as to not offend any potential customers. This can also include refraining from using images that may offend people. In general, most companies produce ads that are good, in the sense that they don’t offend anybody. Now, not offending anyone is quite difficult, but the majority of ads do achieve the job of not offending large amounts of the population. With that being said, there have been a few ads throughout history that weren’t worded properly, and this caused a public outcry. This can be seen in the image below, where the beer company Bud Light used an inappropriate quote that undermines many social values.

Credit: Adweek

This ad by Bud Light was not the brightest decision a company could have made. It states that this is the,

“Perfect beer for removing “No” from your vocabulary for the night”.

-The Bud Light Marketing Team

Not only was this a poor choice of words, but the quote is truly worsened because it was on a beer bottle. Now, why was this received badly in public?

This was received poorly by the public because it gets rid of the No-means-No principle, suggests to rape someone whilst intoxicated, and in general isn’t that appealing.

The No-means-No principle has been taught in some High Schools and in almost all colleges within the United States. It means that when a person, either male or female, says no to another person asking to have sex with them, that is the final say. This quote on the beer bottle suggests that this principle can be thrown out the window by drinking.

The second issue with this ad is that it suggests raping someone whilst intoxicated. This can be inferred in the final section of the quote, “Removing No from your vocabulary for the night.” This can insinuate the idea of raping someone, which would cause significant emotional and physical trauma for that person.

Lastly, the quote isn’t appealing in the slightest. Some people can make out what Bud Light intended, but the company had so many options to choose from when implementing this new quote. The newer quote could have been funnier or just a simple statistic of why their beer is better, but this quote completely ruined the appeal of buying the drink from stores.

In conclusion, this was a bad ad because the wording on the bottle not only defaced many common social values (No-means No principle and Rape is bad/illegal), but was also extremely unappealing. Therefore, it is evident as to why this ad was terrible, and can serve as a lesson to future businesses who intend on marketing with the same language.