Bud Light is relying on a diverse acting cast, Barbra Streisand, an NFT and the metaverse to get young drinkers interested in its new zero-carb brew. 

A Super Bowl ad released today for the product, Bud Light Next, portrays people escaping uncomfortable or boring situations, such as a bad date. It ends with one woman being shown in an avatar-like form playing guitar in a virtual reality landscape, which is a nod to the metaverse. The ad, which uses Streisand’s “Gotta Move” as the soundtrack, also includes an NFT reference:  In one scene, a classic painting portrait at an art gallery is shown wearing pixelated glasses that is a reference to an NFT.

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The NFT image plays into the brand’s Jan. 27 announcement of the “Bud Light N3XT Collection,” which involved selling 12,722 NFTs starting Feb. 6 for $399 each on the Bud Light website. Revenue from the NFT sales will be "reinvested in the AB InBev NFT community," a company spokesperson recently told Ad Age. The NFT was procured from an organization called Nouns that is known for auctioning off one NFT per day, each wearing glasses.

Wieden+Kennedy New York handled the ad while VaynerNFT, VaynerMedia's new NFT unit, designed the NFT program. 

The 45-second spot, which uses the tagline “Zero in the way of possibility,” is meant to position the zero-carb brew as one that “doesn't weigh you down,” as described recently by Benoit Garbe, U.S. chief marketing officer for Anheuser-Busch InBev. 

Bud Light is also in the game with a spot released last week for its new Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda line extension—part of AB InBev’s six-ad Super Bowl buy.

Bud Light Next, which has 80 calories and 4% alcohol by volume, is hitting the market after 10 years of development, said Andy Goeler, VP of marketing Bud Light. “Getting carbs out of beer …  is quite a feat,” he said. The brew targets drinkers ages 21 to 27. 

“It was very apparent that this 21-to-27-year-old consumer is very unique and different than other past generations,” Goeler said. “The thing that resonated with us a lot is this concept of them not wanting to be boxed in,” he said, suggesting they hop from one social activity to the next.

The ad attempts to zero in on that message. It strays from the humorous tone that Bud Light normally uses for the Super Bowl—remember Dilly Dilly?—and into more of a lifestyle space.

How successful the approach remains to be seen, especially as Bud Light Next tries to carve out market share from a host of competing options—everything from canned cocktails and hard seltzers to cannabis.

AB InBev sees the NFT drop—meant to commemorate Bud Light Next’s birth as a brand—as one way to gain notice and capture loyalty. “We want people to own a digital piece of brand history,” said Corey Brown, Bud Light’s senior director for digital. He also suggested that NFT holders will get special benefits, such as invitations to experiences, which he did not specify.

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As AB InBev attempts to build buzz this week about the zero-carb beer, competitor Molson Coors is trying to shift the conversation to one about calories. A new ad from Mischief plugs the brewer’s Miller64 beer, which has 64 calories, by featuring renowned mathematician Ken Ono answering the simple question—which is less 80 (Bud Light Next’s calories), or 64? (Miller64 has 2.4 grams of carbs.)

Hear about Super Bowl ad plans on this week's episode of Marketer's Brief.