Why Super Bowl beer ads have gone to shit

Sundays are normally reserved for The Fingers Weekender, but that’s on hiatus for January (and also part of February, as it turns out.) Before or after today’s special edition, make sure to check out:

• My column at VinePair about Anheuser-Busch InBev’s “good enough” moment in the struggling craft beer segment;

• Your Buzzwords of The Week of The Year 2025 winner here at Fingers;

• My letter from the editor on Fingers’ PoLiTiCaL coverage and commentary of drinking in America;

• This feature on non-alcoholic beer in National Geographic in which I was quoted;

And that’s about it. As ever, if someone forwarded this to you, buy a subscription to get next Sunday’s edition straight in your inbox.

“A single Super Bowl commercial a change our vocabulary,” wrote Bernice Kanner in her 2023 book, The Super Bowl of Advertising: How the Commercials Won the Game. “Whassup?!”

Kanner, a prolific advertising journalist for the New York Times and the New York Daily News, passed away in 2006, so she’s not around to see this year’s slate of beverage-alcohol spots for the big game. Thank heaven for small mercies, because: they ain’t great.

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