Real Men of Genius

Real Men of Genius is a series of advertisements, primarily 60-second American radio spots, for Bud Light beer. The campaign was originally conceived by copywriter Bob Winter and art director Mark Gross and co-created with copywriter Bill Cimino at DDB Chicago.

The campaign began in 1998 under the title Real American Heroes with 12 radio spots.

Anheuser-Busch is reported to have spent $38 million per year broadcasting just the radio version.

The singing was done by Dave Bickler, the lead singer of the band Survivor, known for such songs as "Eye of the Tiger" from the 1980s.

The humorous, yet seriously spoken, commentary was done by voice actor Peter Stacker.

Together, they made an appearance on the television show WGN Morning News and did a Real Men of Genius about the cameraman, which was a parody saying he fell asleep behind the video camera while recording the show.

Sequence

Each sixty-second ad gives mock glorification in the form of a tribute to men in overlooked professions or with humorous or eccentric traits or habits.

2001/02 redaction and renaming

In mid-2001, Anheuser-Busch ordered another 17 Real American Hero ads be made. These ads were pulled from circulation after the 9/11 attacks as mocking American heroism then seemed questionable. The campaign relaunched in 2002 with the title and lyrics changed from Real American Heroes to Real Men of Genius.

Release and reception

Anheuser-Busch were initially reluctant to air the ads because of their irreverent style. Consumer testing, however, proved them to be very popular.

The ads not only received tremendous consumer response, but also won more than 100 awards, including the prestigious Grand Prix for Radio (twice, in 2005 and 2006) as well as Gold and Bronze Lions at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and, in 2003, a Grand Clio, making it the most awarded campaign in history.

The popularity of the series led to many of the commercials being traded on peer-to-peer file sharing networks and bootleg recordings of the ads being sold on eBay.

In late 2006, Anheuser-Busch sponsored a comedy tour titled "Real Men of Comedy" starring John Heffron, Joe Rogan, and Charlie Murphy. This tour featured the announcer (Stacker) and singer (Bickler) performing several of their famous commercials live at the beginning of the show. Stacker and Bickler performed regional versions of the spots to support Budweiser's comedy tour at radio stations and concert-sponsored venues such as Lollapalooza.

Demise

While never officially canceled, funding for the ads was cut in June 2008. The new series was created by Red Interactive, a division of Endeavor Global Marketing, and the brewer’s in-house agency, Draftline, and feature Brandon Beilis (singing)

Stay At Home Humans of Genius

In 2020, Bud Light released the Stay at Home Humans of Genius series on its YouTube channel. The series consists of four ads.