A behind-the-scenes look at how one of the world's most successful ad campaigns almost didn't happen.
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[00:00:00] It is Friday, July 12th. I'm Tod Maffin. As you hear this, my wife and I are on our way back from a week away at the cabin Today we wrap up our week of special programming with a behind-the-scenes look at a wildly successful beer commercial
[00:00:15] That changed not only the course of the brand but the course of culture as well And while you're listening please take a moment to rate and review us as you know
[00:00:24] We don't ask that often it really does help and we put a link at the top of the show notes All right on with the show It's 1997 Filmmaker Charles Stone is trying to break out. He'd done a bunch of short films before
[00:00:40] Did some animation tried his hand at comedy directed a few music videos But he knew what the industry knew the big money was in feature films They don't just start making a two-hour movie
[00:00:55] You start small with a short film something you get at the festivals and Charles thought What I need is something bigger than life something with a universal truth deep but simple Inspiration he had a
[00:01:13] Budget he did not I mean we shot on a shoestring budget if even a budget, you know I got a friend of mine's video a camera wasn't even a DV camera at the time. This was what 97 the fall of 97
[00:01:26] It's when I shot it got a couple my buddies long-term buddies lifelong friends and like many of us The longer your friends with people the more you develop your own little in jokes rituals
[00:01:39] In Charles friends case their ritual was the way they greeted each other with this way of saying what's up? You know and it first it started as what's up, but then slowly transformed into you know with that
[00:01:51] The thing that's funny about is that it was always that it never was something that was like what's up? Or you know, which is I think the more typical route to go with that word and for us
[00:02:02] It was much more distorted and absurd which a lot of our humor is based in absurdity. So It was a process of saying was that was that where I had that's
[00:02:13] Is this something that we would do all the time that greeting it was a strange concept for a film Maybe some other filmmaker would have used that as a beat in a story or a little tidbit of character development But not Charles Charles decided that was the film
[00:02:31] So he and his buddies shot it in one day in an apartment in Harlem The film opens on a guy lying on a couch at home watching a football game his friend calls And the two have what is by any definition the single most boring conversation ever recorded
[00:03:10] Man just chillin In the back in the kitchen another guy enters the shop Coach guy answers And the two of them do that for a while eventually bringing a fourth guy on another phone A fifth buzzes at the door Yeah Then everyone sort of just drops out
[00:03:50] Leaving the two original friends on the phone so what's up, man? man babe Shella oh Shit are you watching the game? true So what's going on B? Shella So what's up? No, man. Just chillin
[00:04:17] Filming over Charles edits it calls it true and starts sending it out to festivals with this audacious description Encrypted phone conversation between two friends that escalates into a celebration of friendship and love within two minutes The meaning of life is explicitly defined for
[00:04:47] Just a moment think about this as if you were among the first festival people to see it You know the people who screened the proposals to see which films make it in Would you have accepted it?
[00:04:59] Could you have possibly known that a reimagined version of it would reach audiences around the world? That its cultural impact would go down in history That it would be celebrated as one of the best ad campaigns Nah
[00:05:16] I bet you'd have rejected it and that my friend is why you are not a festival director Just days after Charles started sending true around my rep or executive producer received like a ton of calls from people from agents and People at some various film studios
[00:05:38] You know asking about me and about this film and you know it like literally exploded overnight Meanwhile in an ad agency cubicle office Vinnie Warren was having a bad week
[00:05:53] He was the creative director of DDB Chicago a couple of years previous. He'd helped land a whale of an account Budweiser That was the good news The bad news was now You have to come up with ideas for them a lot of ideas
[00:06:09] Every year Budweiser and Budweiser had five minutes in the Super Bowl This is Vinnie on the Irish stew podcast a couple of years ago That's ten commercial spots to fill so they would produce about 30 ads and until now Budweiser's ad strategy had been
[00:06:25] Well a little lacking. They had that Those lizards and frogs thing, you know, that was big Budweiser And that was very popular But in my estimation it suffered from the Failed flaw of having animated characters in it and not people because people drink beer
[00:06:53] You know that I was funny But it just kind of didn't do it for me for that regard And that's when a friend of Vinnie's kicked off a chain reaction that resulted in one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time
[00:07:10] Here's how it went Vinnie's friend was a guy named Steve Weinschild from a production company called C&C Storm He saw the film loved it called up Vinnie and said this film man. You've got to see it Vinnie watched it brought a copy into the office
[00:07:25] I would show this VHS tape to other people and they would also Shout whistle. They couldn't not say it once you'd seen this you couldn't not say was up Vinnie walked it over to the desk of his boss agency art director Chuck Taylor this film man. He says
[00:07:41] We got to do something with this. He liked the idea too. We saw the potential of it Chuck calls the client August Bush the fourth the company's vice president this film man You got a license it or something
[00:07:55] And within a few minutes we saw the idea client was that really yep, we'll do it for the Super Bowl. Let's do it Except there was one problem one very big problem Nobody had called Charles the filmmaker
[00:08:09] They pitched the client got sign off but didn't have the rights They hadn't had a conversation. They didn't have Anything so I had to contact him and go hey good news guy I'm Vinnie and we just sold your film as a butt ad and
[00:08:25] Will you do it? Do you what do you think about that number one and will you do it number two? so we had to then purchase the rights to this short film and so
[00:08:36] There was a precedent for this but light had bought a sketch from the Ben Stiller TV show And we'd paid him like 50 grand. I think it was first for the rights to the sketch
[00:08:46] We've been stiller. He's a big star right so we were so I said listen, it's 50 grand That's the going rate Boss you will get to you know direct this with complete creative freedom from us and me
[00:08:59] And it'll be great fun and you'll love it, you know, and it'll be you'll have a good time Hello Yeah, who's up in the end the film and commercial are almost identical
[00:09:14] The only real scripted it was changing just watching the game to watch and game having a butt true Other than that though the shots were identical same lighting Almost all the same people only one of the original friends didn't want to be in it
[00:09:28] So an actor was cast and maybe that's how it felt so real Because it was real. Those were real friends doing what they did every day with each other in real life only now Millions would watch their ritual And
[00:09:49] On December 20th 1999 the ad debuted on one of America's biggest brand platforms Monday night football and in the middle of one of the most iconic years in contemporary pop culture 1999 closed out a decade of relative peace and prosperity
[00:10:12] But the year ended up being a kind of cultural tipping point It was the year leading up to the spectacularly Disappointing Y2K computer bug as the new century rolled over without any power outages or other major. It was the year of Columbine
[00:10:26] We can't tell you there are probably about a half dozen ambulances that that's staged here the bombing of Yugoslavia I've heard that 304 extremely large Explosions the impeachment of Bill Clinton the question is on the second article of impeachment
[00:10:40] Senators house say you is the respondent William Jefferson Clinton guilty Of the world got closer to the millennium America felt a new kind of pent up emotion with strange and scary technologies a destabilizing political environment A fear of what might come next
[00:11:05] Because up until then the 1990s were simple People had more channels to watch than ever before Sitting on the couch and doing nothing became a trademark of Generation X The whole concept of friends just sitting around and chilling became etched deep
[00:11:20] Hell there was even a sitcom with the name friends, which was little more than that A sitcom which itself referenced the ad in 2003 as Ross walks into monica and Chandler's apartment Chandler rolls his eyes and says seriously dude three years ago
[00:11:39] The ad won just a ton of awards, of course including the cans grand pre-award the grand clio award He ended up in the clio hall of fame about seven years later a year after that and heiser bush was named advertiser of the year
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[00:13:55] But the real accolades came not from industry but from culture True was parodied in everything from movies like scary movie Yo, what are you doing? See here watching the game smoke or some butt True true to the simpsons. Hi Bart. What's up to the office?
[00:14:19] I still love that after seven years I was delighted that it was a hit again creative director vinnie warren And that was further surprised by all the parodies, you know that emerged on a line And I'll never forget about three months into it
[00:14:35] Um, we were in new york shooting the sequels to the wassup campaign and it was a saturday night I remember we were really tired And I remember all our phones were started ringing. We're in the lobby of our hotel
[00:14:47] and it was our friends and family calling to tell us that uh Sarin and i live had just opened their new season with a sketch parody of wassup, you know Which ordinarily would have been caused through like great excitement and celebration
[00:15:00] But at that point we were just like oh, that's great. Yeah wonderful click That thing which would probably be most, you know Biggest thing to happen in most people's advertising career being parodied on Saturday night live Was just one more thing in this thing that just seemed to
[00:15:16] Have a life of its own As for anheuser-bush they milked the ad For all it was worth There was the version with the grannies Hello Hey, what you doing, babe? Nothing Watching a game show having a butt What's up with you? Nothing
[00:15:40] I'm watching a game showing i'm having a butt True true What is that? Who is that? Yo pick up the phone There was the one where aliens return to the mothership and the alien overlord asks what they've learned on earth Wassup Wassup
[00:16:06] There was the one in the sushi restaurant Here you are sushi and wasabi Wasabi Yeah wasabi Wasabi Wasabi Wasabi Wasabi Wasabi By now anheuser-bush had started using true as the brand's overall positioning statement Appearing in bold letters at the end of every tv ad they produced
[00:16:36] Nearly a decade later the original cast themselves would recreate the film that started it all And turned it into a two-minute short film heavily critical of george w bush Hello What's up, bee? Nothing Lost my home looking for a job What's up with you? Still an iraq
[00:17:02] Watchin' my ass True true Even that film got nominated for a people's choice award The ad which actually only ran on tv for three years is said to have generated about 20 million dollars In free publicity a number which seems ridiculously low to me
[00:17:26] Part of that might be because at the time earned media estimates didn't even consider the internet Mostly because when things went viral it sort of happened underground through email forwarding And even then things didn't really go viral in the way they do now
[00:17:44] At least until true came along In the end true changed more than advertising People in the film industry said it changed how they wrote friendship Until then hollywood had used the same kind of sappy overstated cliches friendship was an act Sometimes a responsibility
[00:18:06] But here it was just a state of being The language of friendship codified And perhaps the simplest of terms And in that way maybe charl stone's short film description of true was right all along
[00:18:20] A celebration of friendship and love within two minutes the meaning of life is explicitly defined Not bad for a 60 second beer commercial It's true it's true i love you Maybe it's true it's true it's true it's true i love you
[00:18:44] Because it's true it's true it's true it's true i love you baby it's true And now true by anheiser bush Directed by charl scott the third Starring scott martin brooks fred thomas jr paul williams and terry williams Produced by viny waran and chuck taylor of ddb worldwide
[00:19:16] Hello, hey, who's up? None be just watching the game having a bud. What's up with you? None Watching the game having a bud true true Was that Yo, what's that? Yo, you're picking the phone Hello was that Was that Yo, where's dukey? Yo dukey Yo Was that
[00:19:56] Hold on Hello Was that So what's up be Watching the game having a bud True true So that is it for our week of special programming We do plan to make more of these documentaries about ad campaigns and we have a separate podcast for that
[00:20:20] Just search your podcast app for behind the ad with todd maffin And look for some new episodes to start rolling out in the fall If you've enjoyed them this week and you get value from our daily newscast
[00:20:32] Please do rate and review us. We don't often ask it does help a lot And we have put a link at the top of the show notes It's back to the regular schedule next week as you know in the summer we move monday's news to tuesdays
[00:20:42] Just because there isn't much news in the summer on mondays. So i will see you on tuesday I'm todd maffin. Thanks for listening