Adam McCullough doesn’t let the color of a can influence the amount of beer he drinks.

A blue can? A silver can? An orange can? Doesn’t really matter; he’s going to drink beer regardless.

When McCullough heard that Anheuser-Busch created an orange and white Bud Light can, he said he wanted to buy that brand of beer out of school sprit.

The Syracuse University color-schemed beer can is part of Anheuser-Busch’s ‘Team Pride’ campaign, which created and distributed the beer cans for 27 colleges nationwide.

Not surprisingly, students have embraced the campaign. But college administrators received the campaign negatively, including at SU. About 25 of the schools involved have requested that Anheuser-Busch stop distributing these cans near their college campus, claiming it would promote binge drinking and that it is brand infringement.

‘That’s rough they nixed the campaign,’ said McCullough, a senior accounting major. ‘I don’t think it promotes underage drinking or binge drinking, just college-age drinking.’

SU contacted Anheuser-Busch on Aug. 12, officially objecting to the marketing and selling of the beer cans with SU colors in the university area. Approximately 196 cases were distributed in stores around Syracuse.

Anheuser-Busch responded to Bond, Schoeneck & King, the university legal counsel, on Aug. 19, replying: ‘Anheuser-Busch stands by its legal right to market its beer under its famous Bud Light trademark in cans bearing color combinations also used by Syracuse University. Nonetheless, in order to avoid a dispute over the concerns raised by your letter, there should not be any such Fan Color combinations in the school’s community.’

Anheuser-Busch stopped distributing the cans, but it did not pull the cans from store shelves. SU spokesman Kevin Morrow said in an e-mail: ‘The matter is resolved to our satisfaction.’

Other universities shared SU’s disdain over the situation. Georgia Institute of Technology did not want to be associated with the campaign, said James Fetig, Georgia Tech’s associate vice president for communications and marketing.

‘It is high-jacking of our brand, and there is no affiliation between the two,’ Fetig said. ‘We contacted the (Collegiate Licensing Company), and said we do not want to be included.’

The CLC said in a statement that recent legal cases have reinforced that collegiate institutions can protect the rights to their color schemes, giving the case the universities have against Anheuser-Busch some precedent.

At SU, the matter takes on another level of complexity: SU chancellor Nancy Cantor signed the Amethyst Initiative in 2008, supporting research to make the drinking age 18 years old in order to stop students from binge drinking.

‘I think it’s a little contradictory that Cantor signed a bill to lower the drinking age, but won’t let these beers be sold near campus,’ McCullough said.

The Amethyst Initiative mission statement states: ‘A culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ – often conducted off-campus – has developed.’ It goes on to talk about the ‘irresponsible drinking of young people,’ and how lowering the drinking age could curb the dangerous practice.

Michael Walser said his housemate first told him about the SU-inspired cans, and he went out immediately to the P&C Foods grocery store to buy a case.

‘I bought them because they are SU-themed,’ said Walser, a senior physical education major. ‘I was really surprised SU asked [Anheuser-Busch] to stop selling the cans because Bud Light is sold at the Carrier Dome.’

The student reaction glorified the cans as a collector’s item as the cases vanished from shelves around campus.

‘The orange cans are really different,’ said Marc Heintzman, a junior public relations major. ‘Of course, the cans inspire school spirit. I don’t think a colored can would affect the amount people drink.’

mkgalant@syr.edu

Published on September 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm