While many brands paid as much as $4 million to air a Super Bowl ad, one figured out a way to get a lot of attention for much less.

Old Milwaukee aired an ad during the game featuring mustachioed comedian Will Ferrell in an extended kiss with a fellow bus passenger — but only in three tiny markets: Sherman, Tex.; Ardmore, Okla., and Glendive, Mont.

It wasn't immediately clear what the residents of those locales thought of "their" Super Bowl spot. But given its high-profile smoocher, it has resulted in the brewer getting a decent amount of attention compared to the brands that shelled out big bucks to have their ad seen by the huge Super Bowl viewing audience. USA Today, Yahoo!, and other highly watched media outlets had written about the Ferrell spot. 

Ferrell’s ad had received more than 1.5 million YouTube views by midday Tuesday, and seemed to be posted online only by fans of the ad itself. (Budweiser's popular Super Bowl ad featuring the adventures of a young Clydesdale had received more than 9 million by that point, but spent a comparative fortune.)Continue reading...

Budweiser has unveiled its full Super Bowl ad — a rare move for the brand — ahead of Game Day on Sunday.

Titled "The Clydesdales: Brotherhood," the spot heralds the return of Bud's iconic horses, and features its youngest member, who was a week old during the commercial's shoot at the brand's Grant Farm stables.

The spot also promotes a Twitter hashtag, as more Game Day ads will feature this year: #Clydesdales. Watch below.Continue reading...

For more than a century, there’s been a bar fight going on between the world’s biggest brewer, AB InBev (and all its predecessors) and Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar NP. Both claim they should have the rights to the name “Bud” in Europe. 

The most recent winner is AB InBev after the EU General Court in Luxembourg “rejected Budvar’s appeal of AB InBev’s right to the EU trademark because the Czech company presented insufficient proof of the existing use of the name in some European countries,” Bloomberg reports.

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV claims to have been using the Bud name since 1876. Budvar did not exist until 19 years later. AB InBev put in an application for the trademark in July 1996 and, according to the court, Budvar couldn’t show that it had used the term across Europe before then.Continue reading...

As three’s the charm, the Heineken Ideas Brewery is launching its third initiative: The 60+ Challenge. The previous challenges invited the public to reinvent the draught beer experience, and participate in a live innovation event.

Now the Dutch brewer, at 140 years young, is asking creatives worldwide to share observations and insights by Feb. 28th on the lives of those 60+. Participants will compete for a chance to win a share of $10,000 and have their entries, film, photos, or prose, included in a documentary.Continue reading...

No wonder Pantone has selected emerald green for its color of the year. It's Heineken's 140th anniversary, and the Dutch beer giant is unscrewing all the caps to celebrate.

Today in Amsterdam, the Dutch brand is debuting a video wall projection made from 5,000 beer bottles on the side of its headquarters building. Not in Amsterdam? Worry not — fans can check it out from 4pm ET to 10pm ET, every day from Dec. 7th through January 2nd, on Heineken's Facebook page and post on the brand's virtual wall.

And that's not all it's doing on Facebook.Continue reading...

It’s a stellar app from Stella Artois. Fans are invited to log into the Belgian beer brand's Facebook page to send personalized holiday cards featuring actress Alice Eve as “Holiday Carole.”

Incorporating Google Street View, Maps, Places, Directions and Geocoding APIs, Eve travels through your neighborhood (it's available globally) before arriving at your virtual front door to deliver a carol and a holiday gift from Stella Artois.Continue reading...

When the financial crisis hit in the United States, it also was a big blow to one particular Dutch brewery that pretty much only made one beer. Heineken’s sales went down for a couple of years and its U.S President, Don Blaustein, left in August of 2009 “saying he had a different view over how to expand Heineken in the U.S. during the recession,” as Bloomberg recalls.

We’ll never know if Blaustein’s ideas would have worked given more time, but the new guy, Dolf van den Brink (one of Fortune’s 40 Under 40 execs to watch this year), seems to be figuring it out just fine. “We weren’t in a good position in 2008, 2009,” he told the site. “For 45 years, we were a single-brand operation. We were set in our ways.”

His job, of course, has been to shake up those ways.Continue reading...

There’s lots of hoopla going around to celebrate the Rolling Stones turning 50. Concerts are coming up next week in London and in early December in Newark, New Jersey. A new 3-disc, 50-song greatest-hits box set, GRRR!, comes out next week as well. A new documentary about the band, Crossfire Hurricane, is hitting HBO and the BBC and theaters next week, joining another documentary on the band that's now playing theaters, Charlie Is My Darling.

And keep your eyes peeled for the massive Stones coffee-table book. Right about now, you can’t escape the Stones — heck, you can even drink up to Mick, Keith and the boys with a special line of drinks being sold in Japan.Continue reading...