Mike Sheehan, the CEO of Hill Holliday, published comments on the agency's blog this week, reacting to Anheuser-Busch's decision to edit and re-broadcast for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the original Budweiser tribute ad that Hill Holliday created in 2001. His perspective has been nagging me all week.
I understand Sheehan defending the agency's work. But his points feel tone deaf in a digital world. And more than anything, they feel like the grousings of a CEO who just saw his best new-business story become severely diminished.
The attention to color correction; the singular broadcast; the ad's iconic Super Bowl status; all these points are undercut by the successful repurposing of the ad for the anniversary. (Ace Metrix reports that the Bud spot was the most effective ad aired on Sunday, scoring 665 on a scale of 0-950.)
I guess what gets me is how inward the comments feel, posted in the most public of forums. "One of the most powerful dynamics of this particular commercial is that, despite its resonance, it ran only once. Like a pebble dropped in the middle of a still pond, it sent out ripples that endured for years," wrote Sheehan. That is a very precious position. Two airings in 10 years, with a few adjustments to reflect the change of seasons and the evolution of emotion, are hardly grounds for griping.
The kicker is that despite the nuanced defense of how the Anheuser-Busch ad was made, Sheehan writes, "I know absolutely nothing about what it takes to run a successful brewery."