Ad campaigns advising against drinking and driving are nothing new. A quick Google search tells me that MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has been around since 1980 - so yeah, not a new concept by any means. I remember those campaigns back in the late 1990’s maybe where they would open with those home videos of people all happy and celebrating and then say something like, “but sadly just two days later they were killed by a drunk driver,” and BAM there went all the good feelings you had built up watching a two-year old’s birthday party.
If anything, the ads are more prevalent now with “distracted driving” also being an issue. You can be stone cold sober and look down to respond to a text and never look back up. It’s a thing that sadly has not gone away even though we’re all well aware of the risks and consequences.
Well, during the Game 1 of the World Series, Fox aired a Budweiser ad that may be the best anti-drunk driving ad I’ve ever seen in my life. I can only think of one other ad that garnered such an emotional reaction from me (if you must know, it was THIS one and I usually get weird looks when I show people but cut me some slack, I first saw it when I was an advertising major and wanted to be on the creative side and create brilliant ads and who are you to judge me??)
Anyway - back to the Budweiser ad:
After the second watch, I was definitely tearing up. For god’s sake people, if you’re not going to think about yourselves before you get behind the wheel when you shouldn’t just because you don’t want to sleep on your friend’s bean bag chair, at least think of who you’d be leaving behind. As the ad astutely points out, for some, the waiting never ended.
