The text:

Proudly a macro beer. It's not brewed to be fussed over. It's brewed for a crisp, smooth finish. This is the only beer Beechwood aged since 1876. There's only one Budweiser. It's brewed for drinking. Not dissecting. The people who drink our beer are people who like drinking beer. To drink beer brewed the hard way. Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale. We'll be brewing us some golden suds. This is the famous Budweiser beer. This bud's for you.

There's no denying that Budweiser is "macro," and by itself, the attempt to own that characteristic, to spin it as a positive, could be effective (even if there's no actual reason to see "macro" as good). There are, moreover, projects like Stuff White People Like and shows like Portlandia that successfully poke fun at cultural attributes shared by large swaths of the intended audience. If Perkins' remarks to Ad Age are any indication, Bud was trying for good-natured mockery. "Occasionally we do have a little bit of fun with some of the overwrought pretentiousness that exists in some small corners of the beer landscape that is around beer snobbery," he said. "That is the antithesis of what Budweiser is all about."

Then again, there's a degree of snobbery in the words that appear in small print on every Budweiser bottle: "We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age." And there's also a mass market, "real America" brand association that makes it tough for Bud to seem as if it is laughing with rather than at craft-loving young people (though if the ad intended to laugh at them to consolidate the loyalty of their elders, or to write off foodies as unconvertible to Bud and concentrate on the smaller subset of Millennials who feel antagonism toward that subculture, the commercial makes more sense).

This isn't to denigrate the advertising people at Budweiser, who are perhaps in an impossible position. For a guy like my grandfather, who has grown used to the taste of Bud over decades, there's a familiar appeal to the brand, which he prefers. For a 21-year-old walking into a bar for the first time and confronting a dozen beers on tap, the idea that even one in twelve will actively prefer Bud based on taste is fantastical. The diversity of beers available guarantees a fragmented market, and for those who like "Budweiser-type" beers, there are lots of those too.

Thus the impulse to sell Budweiser as macro, unfussy, smooth. But isn't Coors macro? Aren't Tecate and Pabst unfussy? Doesn't Pacifico have a crisp, smooth finish? There's the "beechwood aging"... but only those fussy, dissecting types would care about that. Budweiser is a beer that is losing more of its mass market with every year. It has reacted with a commercial that tries to pitch mass market as its niche. My guess is that they'd have done better to stick with Clydesdales and puppies.