In early April 2019, Budweiser featured basketball star Dwyane Wade in a new ad.
Given the beer’s long history of engaging with current and potential drinkers around sports, it may not be a surprise that the brand was associating itself with the Miami Heat shooting guard – an NBA icon who announced he would retire at the end of the 2018/19 season.
But the commercial undoubtedly stood out from the normal hoops and hang-time action. “This is all about a basketball player, but with no basketball game included,” explained Marcel Marcondes, US chief marketing officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev, the parent...