Budweiser "Whassup?!"
Friends on the phone, watching the game, having a Bud — tongues out, "Whassaaaap!" Budweiser's campaign turned a real short film about real friends into the catchphrase that ate the year 2000, when every phone call, hallway, and sitcom in America did the bit.
The campaign began as "True," a short film written and directed by Charles Stone III, starring Stone and several of his childhood friends sitting around on the phone greeting each other with a drawn-out "whassup?" Vinny Warren, a creative on the Budweiser account at DDB Chicago, came across the film and noticed that everyone he showed it to would shout "Wassup!" at him the next time they met. He pitched it, Anheuser-Busch VP August Busch IV licensed the film, and Stone himself directed the commercials. The first spot aired during Monday Night Football on December 20, 1999, then ran again right after the Super Bowl halftime show in 2000.
It struck a nerve almost instantly. The bit — friends watching the game and having a Bud, tongues out, "Whassaaaap!" — became a global catchphrase, and for roughly two years America answered its phones that way. Budweiser leaned in with sequels: "Whassup Girlfriend" in 2000, then two Super Bowl spots in 2001, one sending an alien back to its mothership with the catchphrase as its report on Earth, the other a deadpan parody of yuppies asking "What are you doing?" The campaign won the Cannes Grand Prix and the Grand Clio and entered the Clio Hall of Fame in 2006.
It had one more act: in 2008, Stone reunited the original cast for a two-minute short critical of the Bush presidency that endorsed Barack Obama's campaign — the old friends, back for one more round. That was always the trick: an ad that borrowed real friendship, and a country that couldn't resist echoing it back.
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