Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” campaign which first aired in 1987, has been called one most iconic advertising campaigns in history. The campaign mock-celebrated often oblivious and universally goofy male archetypes like “Mr. Really Bad Toupeé Wearer” and “Mr. Really Really Really Bad Dancer." We wanted to bring back the work in a more modern way and inspiring way, which meant it should not just be "men."

Our Internet Heroes of Genius ballads are inspired by modern social behaviors online and on social media. We are either these people ourselves or we know someone who is this person. Bud Light celebrated all of these relatable social behaviors, and people loved it on social media, with many nominating their own heroes.

The seven ads included:

• Corporate Social Media Manager? - "sassy, but not too mean."

• Online Encyclopedia Editor? - "whose information is better than accurate—it’s free."

• Person Who Sorts By New - "a nod to members of the Reddit community."

• Snapchat Lens Creator?

• Video Streaming Login Sharer?

• Person Still Using Their Middle School Email?

• Person Who Accidentally Went Viral?

We rolled out the ads on the platform whence its theme originated. (The Snapchat clip ran on Snapchat, naturally; the video-streaming ad appeared on sites like Hulu)

We researched popular and trending social behaviors to identify universally relatable topics. For example, we knew we wanted to do something around video streaming, but following online chatter helped confirm the login-sharer idea as the right direction. Our data gathering (including meme trends and platform insights) also unearthed new directions, like the middle school email ad.

The idea was pitched, approved and produced within a few weeks.

All of the ads were organically released at once on our owned YouTube channel and shared on our owned social media platforms. On launch day, we hosted a real-response experience taking nominations for new Internet Heroes of Geinus — and then sing back paeans to them in real time!

Then over the course of a week, we strategically rolled out the paid ads on the platform whence its theme originated. So for example, The Snapchat clip ran on Snapchat, naturally, the Corporate Social Media Manager appeared on Linked and Twitter, and the video-streaming ad appeared on sites like Hulu. Since they were such a success, we also ran them as digital radio for the rest of the summer.

We successfully leveraged an owned property in new way to better connect with a new age of consumers and and build more relevancy with our target audience. The social video series gained 52,616,941 PR Impressions and generated 11,837 social mentions.