Whassup: All Grown Up
by Tamera H. Bennettposted October 30, 2008
Thank you to attorney Marty Schwimmer for letting me know Whassup.
The idea people behind the famous Budweiser Whassup campaign 8 years ago retained the rights to Whassup and have now created a spot supporting Barack Obama that is on YouTube.
The Wall Street Journal article gives more details of how the rights were retained.
It is interesting to note that Anheuser-Busch does have two live registrations for the trademark Whassup: one for beer and one for "drinking vessels." The concept of the Whassup campaign was licensed to Anheuser-Busch for five years as opposed to a buyout of rights.
Here is the history behind the original Bud commercials from Wikipedia:
The commercials were based on a short film, entitled "True", written and directed by Charles Stone III, that featured Stone and several of his childhood friends - Fred Thomas, Paul Williams, Terry Williams, and Kevin Lofton. The characters sat around talking on the phone and saying "Whassup!" to one another in a comical way. The short was popular at a number of film festivals around the country and eventually caught the attention of Vinny Warren, a creative director at the Chicago based ad agency DDB, who took the idea to August A. Busch IV, vice president of Anheuser-Busch, and signed Stone to direct Budweiser TV commercials based on the film. Scott Martin Brooks won the role of "Dookie" when Kevin Lofton declined to audition. "Whassup!" won the Cannes Grand Prix award and the Grand Clio award, among others. In May 2006, the campaign was inducted into the CLIO Hall of Fame.
