The Original Party Animal.
A Friday newsletter that just wanted to party and somehow ended up in Congress.
Her real name was Honey Tree Evil Eye. That’s the whole newsletter.
Technically her friends called her Evie.
She was a female show dog from Woodstock, Illinois.
She spent two years playing a male party animal named Spuds MacKenzie.
Evie made Anheuser-Busch 20% more money and got a United States Senator to yell about her in Congress, while holding a stuffed animal of her likeness as a prop.
This e is story of marketing legends.
Evie retired to North Riverside, Illinois and died of kidney failure in 1993.
She was ten years old.
Geez, this newsletter took us on quite the arc. Don’t worry. That was the saddest part.
In 1983, Bud Light started putting a bull terrier on bar posters. Frat sweatshirts. Goblets of beer.
The most incredible tagline you’ve ever seen: “The Original Party Animal.”
Not a campaign yet. Just a vibe. A tour de force of four little words.
The aura built slowly on college campuses and in dive bars until 1987, when a 23-year-old art director named Jon Moore at Needham, Harper & Steers in Chicago put Spuds in a Super Bowl ad in 1987.
The rest was history.
THE RISE OF THE PARTY ANIMAL
Within months, Spuds MacKenzie was the most popular thing in America. More popular than ALF, and let me tell you 1987 was peak ALF.
The LA Times called him “a canine cross between Bruce Willis and John Belushi” and “the nation’s most unlikely sex symbol.” Weird, but I’ll allow it. He was deemed, the “AYATOLLAH OF PARTYOLLAH. ”
Macy’s started selling Spuds merchandise.
Over 200 officially licensed products. T-shirts. Beach towels. Beer steins. Stuffed animals. This is the 80s mascot marketing playbook.
That last one matters. We’ll get there.
Bud Light sales jumped 20% in one year. He competed (in an ad) in the pole vault at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
He appeared on Late Night with David Letterman.
He starred in a Christmas ad dressed as Santa — which got pulled in Ohio, because Ohio law prohibits alcohol advertising featuring Santa Claus. Ohio is fascinating place.
“The Spudettes” were available for public appearances. In case you missed it, they were Spud’s entourage of models who rarely left his side.
That’s where it started to turn. Before the partying and laughter stopped.
THEN IT GOT POLITICAL
Slowly schools started banning students from wearing Spuds T-shirts.
Then in November, Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina walked onto the Senate floor with a Spuds MacKenzie stuffed animal.
He held it up over his frail little 84 year old body.
He gave a 15-minute speech about how Anheuser-Busch was using an adorable dog to sell alcohol to children.
The FTC investigated. Found no evidence.
Didn’t matter.
MADD piled on. The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed allegations. Schools kept banning the merch.
In 1989, the party was over.
Anheuser-Busch retired Spuds MacKenzie.
Official reason: the character had started to overshadow the product.
Evie went home to North Riverside.
She lived four more years. She was ten when she died. The campaign was eighteen months old when it ended.
Narrator from The Simpsons’ Behind the Laughter: The dream was over. Coming up: Was the dream really over? Yes, it was. Or was it?
ONE LAST PARTY
In 2017 — 28 years later — Wieden+Kennedy brought Spuds back for Super Bowl LI.
Ghost Spuds. A Christmas Carol structure. Voiced by Carl Weathers. Yes they got Apollo Creed himself to be a glowing, floating bull terrier who appears to a homebody named Brian to remind him that beer is really about friendship.
There was one problem.
A firm called Spuds Ventures LLC had quietly acquired the Spuds MacKenzie name and trademark — twelve days before the commercial aired. They’d been building a pet supply business on the IP since 2013.
They sued.
Bud Light settled.
Spuds has not appeared since.
THE AD LESSON
Spuds MacKenzie didn’t fail. He got cancelled before cancellation was a word.
The FTC cleared the campaign. Sales were still climbing. The character was working exactly as designed — transferring equity from a lovable mascot to the product he represented. That’s not a problem. That’s the whole job.
What killed him was the merchandise.
The stuffed animals and the kids’ T-shirts gave the fun police visual evidence. Even after the FTC said there was nothing there, the images of children’s-sized Spuds gear made the story easy to tell. It looked true.
The creative team built a great campaign. The licensing team sank it.
Control your merchandise. The branded stuffed animal is always where mascot campaigns go sideways, fast.
There’s still vintage Spuds stuffies littering eBay if you need to get your fix in. This one is just $89.23. And has a party hat.
Also: know that there a vampire lawyers out there ready to make you pay if you retire a mascot and leave the IP unguarded for 28 years, at least check who owns the domain name before you book the Super Bowl spot.
THE DRINK: A COLD BUD LIGHT AND A SALTY DOG.
I know. I know.
But sometimes the obvious answer is the right call. Like a beer in the shower. It just makes sense. Spuds MacKenzie spent his entire career trying to make you feel like a Bud Light was the only possible thing in your hand at a party. He was damn good at his job.
If that feels like a cop-out, make it a Salty Dog instead.
Grapefruit juice, gin or vodka, salted rim. It’s the house party drink of 1987. A little trashy in just the right way. The salt makes it feel like effort even though it isn’t.
Spuds would approve.
2 oz gin or vodka
3 oz fresh grapefruit juice
Salt rim
Run a lemon wedge around the rim of a rocks glass, dip in salt, fill with ice, build the drink. That’s it. Or just drink the damned Bud Light.
Evie would have wanted it that way.
She’d want you to watch all her life’s work. (Which you can here)
The Drink Cart. A newsletter version of sitting at a really good bar with someone who thinks too much about advertising and won’t shut up about it. Wednesdays and Fridays.