File under Duh!
 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...bud-pong_x.htm

'Bud Pong' pulled; brewer shocked beer used in game
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Anheuser-Busch (BUD) will discontinue a national promotion called "Bud Pong," a drinking game the company says is supposed to be played with water.
However, participants in the game — played with a ping pong ball and plastic cups — often were drinking beer as they lost points, according to a front-page story Sunday in The New York Times.

The No. 1 U.S. brewer has been promoting Bud Pong competitions since July, supplying tables, balls and glasses to wholesalers across the United States.

Players on one team try to sink a ball into another team's liquid-filled cups. If successful, the opposing team must drink.

Anheuser-Busch says the game's instructions called for water to be consumed during play, not beer, which is the company's main product.

"It has come to our attention that despite our explicit guidelines, there may have been instances where this promotion was not carried out in the manner it was intended," Anheuser-Busch spokeswoman Francine Katz said in a statement Tuesday.

Katz says the promotion was meant to provide a fun activity at bars.

"However as a company that has invested more than $500 million to promote responsible consumption among adults and to discourage abuse, we believe it is important that our intentions with Bud Pong not be misperceived. While we will continue to bring interactive promotions to bars and taverns for those of legal drinking age, we are ending Bud Pong."

Anheuser-Busch CEO Patrick Stokes said recently that the company is trying to promote beer drinking as it loses market share to other alcoholic beverages like spirits and mixed drinks.

The nation's leading brewer has launched separate nationwide promotions to encourage beer drinking. Anheuser-Busch is distributing recipe books to encourage bartenders to mix beer cocktails using ingredients like grenadine and tomato juice.

Contributing: Reuters

Beer Pong competition?! KICK ASS!

They are surprised that beer was used???

WOw, they must have never gone to college, lol.

Here's a hint, make better beer.

I just don't get their thinking with this promotion. They can't actually be stupid enough to think people wouldn't be using beer, especially if they expected the game to be played in BARS. And I haven't seen any sort of outcry against this promotion that would require them to cover their tracks.

Bah, I'll just stick to my Guinness. Brilliant!

Damn, I knew we were supposed to use beer. I had to pee like crazy after playing water pong.

I have to pee like crazy after playing beer pong.

I have the feeling this has more to do with the recent New York Times article than the fact they thought people would use water. It was about drinking games in general, but this promotion certainly played a role in the story. It was a front page story this Sunday. I don't have the link handy, but I'm sure you can find.

They could always suggest using Coors Light (oh, wait, that's pisswater).

I love any serious news article where the reporter clearly wants to call bullshit but has to pretend to be objective. They always manage to work in a sentence like this:

Nothing wrong with Coors Light.

Comparing Coors Light and Busch is like comparing, well, water and water. Hey, maybe by saying water should be used, that was an acknowledgement of the lack of flavor.

Busch? Yuck!!

Any time some beer is mentioned, someone has to say "That's a pussy beer". I thought you drank beer because you either a) enjoyed the taste b)wanted to get drunk or c)both, not because you want to pound your chest like some stupid beer-drinking silverback.

Coors and Bud suck!!! Miller rulez!

Actually I drink Miller because I live in Wisconsin :)

I was a beer pong champ at my college until my beer pong partner dropped out.

Right up until you get to the One True Beer, Guinness. That cannot be called a pussy beer. :)

Pre-fucking-cisely !

There's really only 2 basic kinds of beer: Guinness & everything else.
(subject to various sub-categories in the "everything else" group).

Brilliant!

Does it give you the shits the next day?

I'd say Blatz is a real man's beer because you drink it knowing you're going to be spending most of the next day shitting it all out.

Helps a guy catch up on his reading.

Worse. Farts. Farts of such ridiculous power that the ozone later actually wilts away depending on how much Guinness I have consumed the night before.

Do you need to be careful when you fart? If you don't ever have to change your drawers the day after drinking Guiness it's not even comparable to Blatz.

Guiness isn't beer. It's carbonated chocolate pudding.

No, no, no. Bud, Busch, Coors, Miller, etc isn't real beer, it's just barley flavored water.

That doesn't make Guiness beer.

Guinness was beer before any any American beer. Hell, before America even.