Budweiser donates Super Bowl ad spot for COVID-19 while other brands sit it out

By Chris Burns/Jan. 25, 2021 2:57 pm EST

Several big-name brands will dedicate their Super Bowl advertising time to fighting COVID-19. Anheuser-Busch announced that they "aren't running a commercial during the Super Bowl." To be clear, here, they're not leaving the time-honored and massively expensive tradition – they're donating their airtime to the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative's "COVID-19 Vaccine Education Initiative."

In essence, Anheuser-Busch (who make Budweiser), decided that they'd be best served doing what they can to get their customers back to some form of life slightly closer to normal than we are today. Best served VS running a traditional advertisement, that is. In the past, Anheuser-Busch ran a Super Bowl ad that'd cost piles of cash, and find themselves rolling in brand recognition for advertisements like "Wassup" and the Budweiser frogs: "Bud... weis... er."

While it'd be great if more companies were doing the same thing, it would appear that some of the other biggest brands will either simply avoid ads altogether or change the way they advertise.

Brands that've confirmed they'll skip the Super Bowl altogether:

• Coca-Cola

• Hyundai

• Olay

• Ford

• Little Caesars

• Avocados from Mexico

Brands that still appear to be running standard advertisements include:

• TurboTax

• Toyota

• Pringles

• M&M's

• Mountain Dew*

*PepsiCo will apparently forego advertisements for Pepsi proper, while running ads for subsidiary brands. They'll still be the "sponsor" of the Half Time Show.

Above you'll see a short video that's essentially the placeholder for the traditional Budweiser Super Bowl commercial for 2021.

"Like everyone else, we are eager to get people back together, reopen restaurants and bars, and be able to gather to cheers with friends and family, said Budweiser VP of Marketing, Monica Rustgi. "To do this, and to bring consumers back into neighborhood bars and restaurants that were hit exceptionally hard by the pandemic, we're stepping in to support critical awareness of the COVID-19 vaccine."

Per Rustgi, "Budweiser has joined together with long-time partner the Ad Council, along with COVID Collaborative, to donate airtime to increase awareness and education surrounding the vaccine."