All language subtitles for The.Food.That.Built.America.S04E16.Beer.Run.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb

Today,
the global beer market

is a growing 600
billion dollar industry.

And a colossal 300
billion of that

is for a beer that just
50 years ago didn't exist.

Diet beer.

Apparently tasted
a lot like wet metal.

Until a
visionary who doesn't know

the first thing about beer
changes the industry forever.

It's not diet beer,
it's light beer.

That was really
the moment culture

and marketing came together.

Armies of men chanting-

Less filling, tastes great!

It's fearsome, and bloodthirsty,
and it's incredible.

It ignites a battle
with the biggest beer brand

on the planet.

The rivalry wasn't something
that started off playfully

and then eventually got ugly.

It got ugly off the rip.

His big goal was to just
annihilate Anheuser-Busch.

He is ready to go to war.

Forcing
the king of beers

to risk reinventing a classic.

If you poke a bear,
expect him to bite back.

Okay?

All he wants to do at
this point is crush Miller.

But it will take
trailblazing innovations.

He becomes the
official sponsor

of an upstart new network

Da-da-net, da-da-net,
heard of them?

The amount of money pouring
into this was money at a level

that it just never
been seen before.

Bud really paved the way

for what we think of as
Super Bowl commercials.

To introduce
a new beer to the world.

It's one of the
pivotal moments

in the history of American beer.

Light beer did nothing
short of revitalizing

the American beer industry.

It just blew everything
else out of the water.

And
come out on top.

There are more than
9,000 breweries in the US today,

selling hundreds of styles
from IPA to pale ale,

pilsner, stout,
porter, and wheat,

but the thriving
industry is a far cry

from what it looked like
just over 50 years ago,

at the dawn of the 1970s.

There just weren't
that many breweries.

Small breweries had
gone out of business,

because there just weren't
many people drinking beer.

And those who did stay afloat

tended to be the
larger breweries.

And four really big breweries

kind of took charge
of the market.

The country's
four biggest breweries

are Coors, Pabst, Schlitz,

and at the top by a
landslide Anheuser-Busch.

Anheuser-Busch had
a stronghold on the

number one position
in the United States

producing beer roughly at a rate

of two to one versus its
next closest competitor.

One of the reasons
that large brew companies

became so popular mirrored
what was happening in food.

People were very interested

in large industrial
scale products.

So you've got your Wonder Bread

and you've got your
Velveeta Cheese,

and you've got your
Anheuser-Busch Budweiser beer.

People liked the kind
of space age modernity

of these packages and the
consistency of the products.

The beer landscape
becomes focused

on this lightly flavored golden
sparkling lager style beer.

There was no double
IPA, no sour beer,

no oatmeal stouts,
no light beer.

Americans had a
choice of brands

from the handful
of large companies

of essentially the same
kind of very light lager.

The word L-I-G-H-T when
applied to beer at that time

meant a beer that was yellow,
had a very light body,

not much hops, not much malt.

It didn't have any
connotation with calories.

Meanwhile, other
realms of the booze industry

have evolved.

We start to see a real shift
in the fifties and sixties.

We started seeing the
introduction of cocktails,

with the martini, the margarita.

James Bond said he wanted a
martini shaken, but not stirred,

and that changed everything.

The liquor industry has
found inventive new ways

to increase their profits
through cocktail culture,

but the beer industry is kind
of lacking in innovation.

But nobody
is even trying to take on

the beer goliaths and
revitalize the stagnant market,

until now.

It's not a brewery that
starts the sea change,

but a company that has no
experience selling beer at all.

In 1969, Philip Morris is
an international powerhouse

of the tobacco industry

whose recent Marlborough Man
campaign has skyrocketed them

to a record breaking 1
billion dollars in sales.

But now the government
threatens to stop their growth.

In 1969 Congress
passes a law

that eliminates advertising
for cigarettes on radio and TV.

And so companies
like Philip Morris

realize that they might
be sitting on a industry

that's shrinking and
begins to diversify

into other realms
of the economy,

and they settle on
another vice, so to speak.

And to
lead the new venture,

Philip Morris calls on one
of their own rising stars.

You wanted to see me?

John Murphy started at
Phillip Morris as a tax attorney

and has worked his way

out to the upper
ranks of the business.

John Murphy is
a bit mischievous.

He likes a good drink, a
good joke, a bit of a banter,

and he's also deeply ambitious.

We're gonna need
you in Milwaukee.

Wisconsin, what's
in Wisconsin?

Miller.

In 1969, Philip Morris
buys out Miller Brewing,

which at the time only has
about 4% of the beer market.

Never heard of it.

Every large brewery in the
country was run by a family.

Philip Morris would be the
first company coming in

running a brewery that was
not a family of brewers.

Miller Brewing was
founded in Milwaukee

in the middle of
the 19th century,

owned by the Miller family.

Miller's future looked
incredibly bright

in the early 1950s,

it was becoming known
as a national beer.

And in late 1954, Fred Miller,

the wonder kid who
had done all this,

and his son died
in a plane crash.

After that, the company
just lost its way.

And Miller was turned
over to Philip Morris.

While
Anheuser-Busch

offers brands like Michelob
and Busch Bavarian,

along with their flagship
brand, Budweiser,

Miller is scraping by with
a single product offering.

Miller High Life was
introduced by the family in

1903, and their advertising
anchor for it

was that this was a
champagne like beer.

When prohibition ended, that
was the only beer they made,

which was a very
unusual decision

for any brewery to make.

They just threw all their
eggs into this one basket.

Philip Morris sees how
much room there is for growth

in the beer market.

They see these breweries
just kind of making

and selling all the
same lager product.

Beer and cigarettes are
both agricultural products,

and they can be mass produced,

and they're usually
consumed by the same people.

So having a brewery struck
them as a great idea.

So they sent John
Murphy to Milwaukee

to figure out how to
run a beer company.

When John
Murphy arrives in Milwaukee,

Miller High Life is fading.

John Murphy didn't have any
brewing experience at all.

Here he is, he's gonna build
up this brewing company,

and all he's gotta do is
figure out how to do it.

The champagne of beers.

What John
Murphy puts into action

will lead to the creation of
a groundbreaking new product

that will bring in over 2
billion dollars annually,

and spearhead an entirely
new global market

worth over 300 billion dollars,

forever changing
the beer industry.

But in 1970, the
rookie brand fixer

doesn't have a clue
where to begin.

Day's done, boys,
it's time for beer.

John Murphy really doesn't
know very much about beer.

What he does know is that he
wants to eventually become

president of Philip Morris,

and he knows that if he
succeeds in growing Miller

into this juggernaut of a brand,

the likelihood that he
will become president

of Philip Morris is
exponentially greater.

Gussie Bush has led
the family operated

Anheuser-Busch empire since
the end of World War II,

and has grown the business
from one St. Louis brewery

to nine nationwide.

Gussie embodied the
idea of being number one

at everything he did.

It was very important for him
to have the aura of someone

who has a number one
brewery and a personality

that people look to as someone

who is successful and important.

But Gussie was so focused
on the beer of yesterday.

Gussie has
grown sales by over 400%

without producing a new
product in 15 years.

And while their
century old flagship,

Budweiser, remains number one,

profits are on the
decline industry wide.

Anheuser-Busch was struggling

partly because every
brewer was struggling.

Breweries were all basically
selling the same beer.

And
years of stagnation

have stifled the
industry's growth.

We need to trim the fat.

Fire the marketing department.

No, no, our advertising's
what's going to grow our brand,

Please, our beer sells itself.

His son August III is
a relentless workaholic,

hard-nosed man of the
people kind of approach,

but he also sees where
the company can go.

August III saw things
happening in the market

that Gussie wasn't
paying attention to.

He's still kind of in
that older mindset.

Technology was
growing at a rapid speed

at the start of the 1970s,

and automation promises to
improve not only manufacturing,

but also to cut costs.

August wants Anheuser-Busch
to evolve with the times

by modernizing with
the latest technology

to develop new products.

Rather than looking
behind him at tradition,

he was thinking about how
will the company grow?

How will the country grow and
where will he sit in that?

That'll be all.

August is very
forward thinking values

really rubbed Gussie's
traditional quality standard,

family values the wrong way.

Gussie says that beer
isn't a computer business,

that beer is about people.

August will one day bring
the company into the future

with a legendary new
product that will surpass

even his family's own Budweiser

to become America's
favorite beer,

recognized around the
globe and leading the way

for dozens of new varieties
of beer beyond lager.

But first, he'll have to
defeat an aggressive rival

coming for him, even if
it means going to war

with his own father.

August, don't ever
question me again.

John
Murphy, a rising star

of the Philip Morris company,

has been sent to
Milwaukee to try and save

a struggling brewery
called Miller.

Philip Morris has
charged John Murphy

with creating a
success with a product

he really doesn't
know very much about

in a highly competitive market

with one of the most fearsome,

ruthless competitors out there.

But even against
the Anheuser-Busch behemoth,

Miller has an ace
up their sleeve.

Miller had a lot
of money to spend

because of Philip Morris,

far more even than
Anheuser-Busch.

They had bajillions of dollars.

Now that Philip Morris
can't advertise cigarettes

on TV anymore, they
have a ton of ad money

sitting around and
they're ready to burn it.

Murphy's first
step is to tackle the marketing

that's been used since
before World War I.

At the start of
the 20th century,

beer was hardly sold in bottles.

It was served at saloons
or maybe carried home

from the bar in a bucket, hence
the luxury of bottled beer,

the champagne of bottled beer.

But by the 1970s,
this is common stuff.

People have been drinking out
of bottles for decades now,

and it's very affordable.

It's time for beer!

The notion of the
luxury of bottled beer

no longer resonates with the
drinkers of bottled beer.

Those guys drinking
Miller after work.

The first thing John Murphy
did was to take the beer

out of the champaign bucket

and put it into the
workman's lunch bucket.

Miller time.

So he tossed out the
whole thing about it

being a champagne of beer,

and they developed
the ad campaign

based on working people.

It's Miller time.

Time to head for the best
tasting beer you can find.

Murphy's idea to make the
Miller Time advertising campaign

all about the hardworking
blue collar men

is a way to distinguish
Miller High Life

from the industry's biggest
competitor, Budweiser,

whose marketing is
all about tradition.

Launching in 1971, Murphy
hasn't changed the beer itself,

but the campaign quadruples
Miller High Life sales

to over 20 million barrels.

Philip Morris
knew how to market.

They had already become the
top of the cigarette market.

They've proven that they know
how to get a brand out there

and make American
people loyal to it.

So they were a huge
threat to Anheuser-Busch.

At Anheuser-Busch,

there was a Shakespearean
power struggle

between Auggie Bush and
his father Gus Bush.

And John Murphy was
a guy who understood

how to take advantage
of a moment.

August III sees Miller
coming for Anheuser-Busch,

and immediately saw
that was a threat.

He knows that it's time
to start making changes

in marketing.

Gussie doesn't care
about them at all.

Miller Brewing was just
this company in Milwaukee,

and Gus Bush just did
not take it seriously.

He thought,
"Here's a cigarette company.

They're buying a beer
company, what do they know?"

In the 1970s,
technology is moving fast.

August sees it as the time
that he can't wait any longer.

He can't quietly wait for
Gussie to either quit or die.

Behind
his father's back,

August makes deals with
members of the board

for their allegiance.

He was laying the grounds
for a future thinking company

that would eventually exist.

Many of the board members
actually agree with him,

and decide that it might be
the time to have a transition

of who is at the
helm of the business,

and make sure the company

stays at the top
of the beer market.

Since the launch
of the Miller Time campaign,

Miller's become the fifth
biggest brewery in the country,

but with just 5% market share,

they still have a long way to
catch up to Anheuser-Busch's

leading 21%.

John Murphy decided to
conquer the brewing world

and turn Miller Brewing
into the biggest brewery

in the country.

His big goal was to just
annihilate Anheuser-Busch.

Let's try some.

Murphy was coming
from Philip Morris

and you know they didn't just
rely on one cigarette brand.

In addition to Marlboro,
they had Parliaments,

they had Benson and Hedges.

They even had Philip
Morris brand cigarettes.

In an
attempt to diversify,

Miller buys a recently
bankrupt Chicago based brewery,

Meister Br äu, which also
comes with a collection

of unsuccessful brands.

What's that one?

Some low caloried beer.

Diet beer.

Low calorie beer was
this very obscure product

that most Americans
had never heard of.

It was launched in
1967 and was marketed

mostly towards people on a diet,

mainly women before it
finally went bankrupt.

Apparently tasted a
lot like wet metal.

Meister
Br äu's attempt at diet beer

was a result of a growing trend

towards health consciousness.

In the 1960s, scientists
begin to determine

that we have way too much
sugar in the American diet ,

and it is causing all
kinds of medical problems.

This increased
awareness in health

absolutely spurs changes
in the food industry.

This is when you have
Crystal Light, and low fat,

and diet, and shakes
instead of food.

Americans went crazy for diet
foods and beer was seen as,

"Ugh, you're gonna diet, you
can not drink this stuff."

Beer had always had a
reputation of being fattening.

The real caloric impact
from beer comes from sugar.

Sugar takes a lot
of calories to burn,

and that's why it normally
stays on your body as fat,

as a beer belly.

In 1967, the
recipe for Meister Br äu's

low calorie beer was
invented by scientist,

Dr. Joseph Owades.

Dr. Joseph Owades
process in developing

a light caloried beer
involved the use of enzymes

known as glucoamylase
in the brewing process.

This enzyme breaks down
a lot of the sugars

that are in the beer that
contribute to body, mouth feel.

Certainly a little bit of
flavor and definitely calories.

Meister Br äu is
inherently less fattening,

but the flavor is
not like a real beer,

and it failed miserably.

And the taste
wasn't the only problem.

Diet beer was basically
a poisonous concept

to many American males because
diet, that's for women.

Despite its
failure on the regional level,

Murphy sees potential in
taking diet beer national

for the first time.

It's something
Anheuser-Busch doesn't have.

The nation's
top brewers believe

diet beer could alienate
their core market.

The other top breweries,

they're too nervous to
put their brand's name

onto diet beer.

Brewing companies
objected to diet beers,

because if you're trying
to sell a diet beer,

then you're conceding the
point that beer is fattening.

And if this beer bond
it was just better

to not be associated with it.

But Murphy sees
it as an opportunity

to expand Miller's market.

John Murphy was a company guy

and he absorbed the
Philip Morris ethos.

He understood that you
need to find markets.

From Murphy's point of view,

there's an entire audience
out there for diet beer

that no one's even coming near.

But first, he'll
need to improve the flavor.

It's a massive risk.

You stop and you
think about, my gosh,

you know that is your life,
your career on the line.

You only took the Miller job

to become president of Philip
Morris, and if you blow this,

I mean they gonna bury you
under the conveyor belt, buddy.

The team at
Miller has been working

for nearly a year trying
to improve the taste

of their new diet beer.

They fiddled around with it,

trying to come up with
the right formula,

'cause they wanted
to taste like beer.

They definitely wanted
to taste like beer,

and that's not something
you can do in a week.

Up to 80% of a beer's flavor

comes from the strain
of yeast that's used.

So in order to
improve the flavor,

they decided to use the
exact strain of yeast

that the founder of
Miller, Frederick Miller,

brought with him from
Germany in the 1850s.

The unique
yeast provides the beer

with an aroma and taste that
maintains a lager's flavor.

Now they've got a diet beer

that's reminiscent of a
beer people know and love.

It's not dissimilar
to what Coke will do

a few years later
with Diet Coke.

Maybe not the same
flavor exactly,

but it gives you the
same satisfaction.

To John
Murphy, the new formula

tastes just as good, if not
better than the original Miller.

The fact that they were
able to make it taste

like regular beer, it
was a big innovation.

The other breweries,

they didn't know quite
how they pulled it off.

Now he
needs to find a way

to convince customers to try it.

What they're trying to
do is with low calorie beer

was to come up with the
perfect advertising campaign.

He commissions a comprehensive
study of beer drinkers,

and the results narrow
down the demographic

drinking the most beer.

Sports fans are beer drinkers.

Sports reflect this
uber macho male culture,

and beer has just always
been an integral part

to the gathering of guys.

And this notion of
beer being unhealthy,

or beer leading to a perhaps

less than aesthetically
pleasing physique,

that wasn't what guys
really thought about.

So it wasn't about
being healthy.

Miller realized we need to
sell this to the same people

who are drinking
our regular beer.

What they did was they set out

to make this thing seem macho.

Philip Morris had
been one of the leaders

in making low tar, low
nicotine cigarettes,

because during the health craze,

cigarette manufacturers
are trying to figure out

ways to convince the public
that they can smoke a cigarette

that's light in tobacco.

So this was an idea that
John Murphy grasped.

Murphy
needs the perfect message

to sell lower calories
to a wider audience,

and make sure that everyone in
his target demo will hear it.

John Murphy realizes
that it's gonna require him

being very creative
and spending more money

than Philip Morris
has ever spent before.

400
Miles south of Miller

seismic shifts are in
motion at Anheuser-Busch.

What is this?

Gussie has to watch as board
members say that they think

Gussie should be replaced
as the head of the company.

With who?

Me.

Gussie was blindsided.

He saw himself as the person
who took Anheuser-Busch

to number one, and he
couldn't believe that people

would not be loyal
to him and respect

all he had done
for this company.

August III was in charge now.

It was time to automate
whatever they could

and you know, do what
the computer model

said to cut costs,

and that would be this new
modern bottling machinery.

He is going to be
the first person

with the most forward thinking,

most futuristic tools
on his bottling line.

But for all
his focus on the future,

August is unaware
of the innovations

underway by his
newest competition.

Miller is mounting a
light beer revolution.

August was definitely missing
the boat as it's taking off.

Meanwhile, John Murphy

needs Philip Morris's
buy-in to get funding

to market his new
diet beer concept.

It's not about being
healthy or counting calories.

It's not diet beer.

It's light beer.

Introducing Lite Beer by Miller.

The genius of
the new ad campaign

was that they just side
stepped the whole diet thing.

It's more you can
drink more of this,

because you're not
going get as full.

Same great taste,
less filling.

Murphy's asking
for enough to fund

one of the biggest ad
campaigns in history.

The ad spend on this will
cost us a billion dollars.

It's gonna make us number one.

Now John Murphy will have
to make good on the promise

that Miller's Lite Beer can
take down the king of beers.

We're gonna be bigger
than Anheuser-Busch.

August Busch's
rise to power in 1975

sends a shockwave
through Anheuser-Busch.

August immediately begins
modernizing the company,

replacing many workers
for automated machines.

The union workers
are infuriated.

The company were starting
to eliminate people

who are hand bottling
things for machines

that are bottling things.

The people who are
managing the bottling lines

asked to have full approval
of any new automation

within the bottling
processes in the company.

But August is not going to budge
on modernizing his company.

But when the
teamsters call a strike,

it forces Anheuser-Busch's
production to stop down

and their stock to plummet.

Meanwhile, John
Murphy prepares to launch

Lite Beer by Miller
with Philip Morris

supplying hundreds of
millions of dollars

for an advertising onslaught.

The amount of money
that Philip Morris

was pouring into this
was money at a level

that it just never
been seen before.

He decides to
create a campaign

that will hit Americans,

specifically American
men, right in the feels.

So he recruits people
they'll listen to.

Sports heroes, New York
Jets player Matt Snell,

the Yankee icon, the Mick
himself, Mickey Mantle.

He brings in
smoking Joe Frazier,

and of course former
coach John Madden.

He dubs them all
the Lite All Stars.

In 1975, Miller
launches Lite Beer nationwide

with an advertising blitz
featuring their All Stars.

The best thing about
it, it tastes great.

No, Horny, it's less filling.

Says who?

They had this
great marketing idea

to create the great debate.

Is Miller Lite less filling
or does it taste great?

That was kind of the mantra.

- Tastes great!
- Less filling!

Tastes great!

Armies of men chanting,
not like it's a slogan,

but like it's
almost a battle cry.

It's fearsome, and it's blood
thirsty and it's incredible.

Less filling is a
great way to put a spin

on something being diet,

'cause that could turn
a lot of guys off.

The idea of being, it's
not gonna fill you up

because of low calories, so man,

when you're in at
the bar after work,

you can drink a whole bunch
of these if you want to.

It was genius.

Veteran beer marketers are just,

their jaws are hanging open.

That was really the
moment culture and marketing

came together and light beer
just took off like a rocket.

Over
the next decade,

Miller will shoot more
than 80 commercials

with dozens of celebrities
and sports icons.

It goes back to
the old saying,

people don't know what they
want until you show them.

And that's exactly
what they did.

Almost every commercial
in every game

was a Lite Beer commercial.

Is still regarded
50 years later

as one of the pivotal moments

in the history of American beer.

Everybody in the industry
was flabbergasted

that Americans really wanted
a diet beer, especially men.

By
1977, just two years

since launching the only
light beer on the market,

Miller is making 76
million dollars in profit,

almost three times what
it made the previous year,

and has become the second
largest brewer in America.

And it completely caught
Anheuser-Busch off guard.

The strike
at Anheuser-Busch

ends after 14 weeks.

The union finally
gives into August

and ends up basically getting
nothing that they asked for.

But now August finds the
strike pales in comparison

to a far greater threat.

Not only does August III

truly have competition
on his hands,

he's gonna start
playing catch up.

John Murphy fully
intended to knock AB

out of the number one spot,

which it had held for
decades at that point,

not while Auggie
Busch was in charge.

August
tasks his brewers

with creating a low
calorie beer of their own.

Miller has a year
or two advantage,

but once they realized
that light beer

is starting to eat
away at the market,

they were able to move quickly,

because they weren't going
to have any new chemicals

coming in, they didn't
have to test stabilizers,

none of that.

They only used
longer mashing times.

So they were had
less carbs and sugar

that can end up
in the final beer.

It was a small tweak
to the brewing process.

With a century
of brewing experience

passed down in his family,

August plans to
obliterate Miller

with an even better
tasting light beer.

Okay.

August's new
beer has only 97 calories,

33% less than Budweiser,

making it the lightest
offering Anheuser-Busch

has produced to date, exactly
one calorie more than Miller.

He calls it-

Natural Light.

Yep, Natty Light
was Anheuser-Busch's

first light beer.

music]

In 1977,

Budweiser is still the most
popular beer on the market,

but now with Miller's
Lite Beer in second place,

Anheuser-Busch
rushes to introduce

their own version of light beer.

The name Natural Light
comes from Anheuser-Busch's

absolute commitment
to a natural product,

both natural ingredients
and natural process.

August sees that light
beer has potential,

but it's still a novelty
and for all he knows,

it's just a fad, so he's
not willing to put the name

Budweiser on a diet beer
and risk damaging the brand.

All he wants to do at this
point is crush Miller.

August
Busch poaches several

of the Miller All Stars
for his own ad campaign.

Lite Beer, Mick?

Nah, I switched
to Natural Light.

Their initial marketing
campaign for Natural Light

was all about switching.

No questions about it, that
they weren't just creating

this new light beer and
putting it in the market.

They created it to
take share from Miller.

But there is
still a massive roadblock.

Miller has exclusive contracts
during sporting events.

Which ones?

All of them.

Miller had bought up
every single bit of airtime

at every single
major sporting event.

The World Series, the Indy
500, the Moscow Olympics.

Basically everything
had already been purchased

to the point that they
were having a hard time

finding anything to
purchase for Natural Light.

While Philip Morris
has a pretty big budget,

so does Anheuser-Busch, and
while they can't buy airtime,

they do something aggressive
and unprecedented.

August is not
giving up easily.

He is ready to go to war.

If we can't buy the ad
time, we'll get the teams.

So leveraging 70% of
AB's 400 million dollar

advertising budget,
August decides to sponsor

all 24 US based
MLB baseball teams,

20 of the 28 NFL football teams,

23 out of 24 NBA
basketball teams,

and 13 or 14 domestic
NHL hockey teams.

It was absolutely competitive

between August and John Murphy.

It was both a fight in the
media and at the tap handles.

The rivalry between
Anheuser-Busch and Miller

wasn't something that
started off playfully,

and then eventually got ugly,
it got ugly off the rip.

At the height of Miller's
battle with Anheuser-Busch,

John Murphy was said to
have a rug in his office

with the Anheuser-Busch logo,

so that he could
wipe his feet on it.

He would even pull
out a voodoo doll

that he called August

that bore a striking resemblance
to August III himself,

and he would stick pins in it
and it had the desired effect.

It pissed August III off.

And August is
ready to pour as much money

as necessary to fend off Miller.

Though he was late to the
game in creating a light beer,

he is way ahead of the
game when he decides

to become the official sponsor
of an upstart new network

out of Bristol, Connecticut,

called The Entertainment and
Sports Programming Network.

Heard of them?

Da-da-net, da-da-net, me too.

Off the
strength of Anheuser-Busch's

exclusive ad buys,
this new network

grows to reach 28 million
homes in just four years.

And in 1983, ESPN becomes
the largest network on cable.

And the war between
Anheuser-Busch and Miller

makes it clear to the
rest of the industry

that there's big
money in light beer.

While the light
beer wars raged,

right behind them was Coors
Light, released in 1978.

Schlitz made an attempt
when it brought out

its light beer in
the late seventies.

There were all kinds of low
calorie beers to choose from.

But Lite Beer by Miller
holds the number one spot.

Now, August Busch is
readying a new secret weapon.

It was just obvious that
Natural was apparently

only gonna get
Anheuser-Busch so far.

August says to one
of his confidants,

"If this doesn't go well, if
people don't like this beer.

If they don't drink it,

I am out and my family
is out of this company."

If he's gonna hold onto it
as the head of the family,

it needs to be bulletproof.

He cannot fail on this one.

This is a company that has
been making Budweiser beer

for over 100 years, it's
synonymous with the brewery.

And to extend that line
was a really risky thing.

It has to be better than any
other light beer on the market.

If it's going to be the
next great American beer,

it has to say Budweiser.

With
Lite Beer by Miller

getting closer and closer to
toppling the number one beer

in the world, Budweiser,

August Busch finally
unleashes a light beer

emblazoned with
the Budweiser name.

The branding of
Budweiser Light

was an incredibly risky
move for the company,

because it was pulling
from the goodwill

and brand recognition
of their flagship beer,

which had pretty much
been their workhouse

throughout the entire
course of their history.

In 1982, Budweiser
Light hits store shelves

backed by a 57 million
dollar ad campaign.

Their tagline is,

"Finally a light beer worthy
of the Budweiser name."

So they basically tell everyone,

this took a while
because it is so good.

But in
its first two years,

the lower calorie version of
America's favorite beer fails

to beat out Lite Beer by Miller.

When Budweiser Light
was first introduced,

the idea was to
closely align that

with their flagship product,

and that was the
approach that failed.

And so the company took
a different approach.

In 1984, 2 years
after Budweiser Light

hit the store shelves, they
want to differentiate it

from the original,
make it cool.

You know, something
to drink at parties.

It's not just your
grandfather's Budweiser,

but it's also a
huge risk for them

to deviate from the
brand they've

had so much success with.

Beautiful name, right
to the point, Bud Light.

And so they had a
series of ad campaigns

to repackage Light beer
as a young person's drink.

You're trying to create an
image of the kind of person

the drinker wants to be.

In 1987, Bud
Light uses the Super Bowl,

the most watched sporting
event of the year

to introduce a new
face for the brand.

He's Spuds MacKenzie, Bud
Light's original party animal.

♪ Go Spuds go

When the Spuds MacKenzie ad
came out, you start to see,

Okay, we're not pitching
this at middle-aged guys

with bellies with
bellies anymore.

We're gonna have young people

who look really
good in swimsuits,

and that's the people who
should be drinking Bud Light.

Ladies and
gentlemen, Mr. Spuds MacKenzie.

I don't think the Super
Bowl would be what it is

without the Anheuser-Busch
ad campaigns

that it put forth for Bud Light.

We watched the Super
Bowl for the commercials

as much as the game.

Bud really paved the
way for what we think of

as Super Bowl commercials.

They were wackier,
funnier, more irreverent,

and they are as indelible
to the Super Bowl

at this point as anything, Bud
Light is the Super Bowl beer.

Bud Light became
the go-to party beer.

Anheuser-Busch had
gotten its mojo back

and it was going
full steam ahead.

In 1994,
after a 17 year battle

between Anheuser-Busch
and Miller,

Bud Light finally overtakes
Lite Beer by Miller.

We can certainly
thank Miller Lite

for introducing light
beer to the mass market

in the United States, but
we have Bud Light to thank

for pushing it to boundaries

that we've never
seen in the past.

August III definitely
deserves a lot of credit.

He saw the future coming, wasn't
afraid to respond to that.

He knew the brand was
strong enough to stand

splitting into
light beer as well.

So without him
and his foresight,

Bud Light and light
beer in general

just might not be as
big as it is today.

In 1998, off of
Bud Light's rapid success,

Miller changes the name
of its best-selling brand,

Lite Beer by Miller to the
shorter catchier version

we know today, Miller Lite.

Following Miller's
astronomical success,

Murphy is promoted to
president of Philip Morris.

Murphy had no fear,
he just plowed forward

without stopping and
the momentum that

light beer created,
it became a thing unto itself.

If you look at the
top 10 brands today,

almost all of them
are either low carb,

or low calorie, or both.

In 2001, Murphy
witnessed the unimaginable.

A light beer finally
beat out Budweiser

for the number one spot.

However, it wasn't
Miller Lite as he hoped.

Bud light is such a force.

Nobody realizes or remembers
what actually happened,

that Miller
pioneered light beer.

Miller Lite might not be
as big as Bud Light now,

but they're the
reason that we have it

and any other light beer.

And in 2002, nearly
30 years after ushering in

the light beer craze,
Murphy passes away.

Today, Bud Light remains the
number one beer in America,

and 20,000 Bud Lights
are sold every minute.

Bud Light may be king, but
Miller Lite paved the way.

Not
only is light beer

the best selling domestic
beer category in America,

it's spearheaded the growth
of the global beer market

to become a 600 billion
dollar industry.

While there were barely
100 breweries in the US

when Murphy invented
Miller Lite,

there are now more than
9,000 across America.

The rivalry between
Miller and Anheuser-Busch

did nothing short
of revitalizing

the American beer industry.

And it opened us up to whole
new categories of beer,

things like ice beer, red
beers, wheat beers, draft beers,

the embracing of
foreign and craft beers.

None of that could have happened

unless John Murphy
and August III

upset the apple cart for
the betterment of all of us.