Chasing the thirsty binge-watcher

Plus: The anti-trans Bud Light “boycott” is not real

In mid-March, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced it had formed a partnership with a production house helmed by Oscar winner Michael Sugar¹ to create original series for streaming platforms. The project is called draftLine Entertainment, and according to marketer Lauren Denowitz, its goal is to (emphasis mine; I swear I didn’t make this quote up):

unlock growth via entertainment by reimagining what brand storytelling could look like if unbound by seconds-long interruptive ads, and determine the shape of what lies at the intersection of beer x culture x storytelling.

As I noted to paid subscribers in The Fingers Weekender a few Sundays ago (buy a subscription to get the next one!), this word salad basically probably just means “we’re going to light a bunch of beer money on fire making forgettable Netflix filler until one of the Brazilians at the top catches wise.” But as hard as that jargon is to follow, the logic underpinning ABI’s maybe-doomed move into streaming is actually very straightforward: