Budweiser's Cannes Grand Prix: A Multimillion Dollar Music Rights Cluster F*ck.

Whaaaazzzzzuuuppppp. Budweiser won big at Cannes last week but forgot to, you know, make work that's legal.

Stumbling along the Croisette between yacht parties, villa soirées and beach lounges (last time I mentioned it this year, I promise), multiple people started frantically talking to me about Budweiser winning a Grand Prix using music they didn't have to pay for, how genius it all was and how music people for some reason felt upset.

In a slightly drunken haze of rosé, I kind of forgot all about it until I saw someone post the case study when I arrived home, followed by a slew of opinion pieces from exactly my neck of the LinkedIn woods (ad, tech and music). Here's my take on what happened and what will happen in relation to this.

The Story in Short

Budweiser's "One Second Ads" wins Radio & Audio Grand Prix. In a sort of online quiz, they gave their audience a chance to partake in a music game where they could guess the song based on a 1-second snippet and win coupons. Their insight: it takes only a second for music fans to identify their favorite song when they hear it. And they were right.

Behind this insight, Budweiser played the role of a high-speed DJ, capturing fan passions in an instant and demonstrating they were one of them. They shared stunning results: 68 million impressions in two weeks, 125k guesses, 4,878 coupons redeemed. But here's the kicker, they publicly boasted that by using only 1 second of music, they avoided spending money on licenses, essentially celebrating the very thing that makes them legally vulnerable.

The Problem

It's illegal for a brand to use music in any shape or form without acquiring the appropriate licenses. In short, that means at least getting rights to the composition (publishing) and the recording (master). No signed license means a brand is liable for a lawsuit. This goes for social media as per recent lawsuits in the USA against NBA teams and Crumbl Cookies and it's applicable for the vast majority of online brands.Just do a little doomscrolling and realize that the industry is not set up to license Dr. Dre and Eminem songs at scale.

The idea that if a song is short enough (I've heard 30 seconds, 10 seconds, and now 1 second) it's fair use is an absolute myth and not true. This myth suggests that if something is so short it's not recognizable, therefore it's not copyrightable. Oh, sweet irony, as this campaign is built on the idea that 1 second IS enough to recognize a song.

How Budweiser, its agency, and its legal team did this is mesmerizing and how the Cannes Lions jury, with at least one person dealing with music (normally people who know their business), didn't pick up on this is beyond me. Now, there's a slight chance these songs are actually licensed, even though I doubt it and my quick research amongst my sync friends shows no sign of these tracks being cleared.

So What Will Happen?

1. Lawsuits, baby. Bring out the popcorn.

This includes 50+ triple-A songs all represented by the majors and the biggest indies who will have a field day dealing with this. Assuming this would be global internet only, for 1 year, according to our Ringo Expected Sync Value algorithm, you're talking approximately $600K per side (master and publishing), so around $1.2M per song and this would be without even taking into account any fines, etc. Anyone want to hire me? I'll happily play my part.

2. They need to return the Grand Prix.

Rule 13 of the official Cannes Lions entry rules: "By submitting an entry, you confirm that you own all applicable legal rights for all media included in your entry." Breaching any rule allows the Festival to disqualify or withdraw an award at any stage.

Regardless of whether they did or didn't license the tracks, either they did and their insight on how this was possible was a lie, or they didn't and did something illegal. In terms of popcorn purposes, I hope they go for the latter.

3. The jury that gave this out should be ashamed,

and make some sort of statement. This is the highest honor in the industry and giving out the Cannes Lions Grand Prix means something has to be extraordinarily good, and the jury should reflect that in its due diligence.

4. The people involved will get fired.

Whether it's the production team who didn't think about music rights, the account management who signed off on it, or the legal team who somehow missed this glaring issue someone's head will roll.

In an industry where careers can be made or broken by a campaign that wins awards, being responsible for a multimillion-dollar lawsuit and having to return a Grand Prix is pretty much career suicide. The agency will need scapegoats, and Budweiser will demand accountability.

5. Budweiser will suffer some serious brand damage,

as this is no way to deal with the cultural capital they in turn use to build their brand. For a beer company, music credibility is everything it's how they connect with their audience, especially younger demographics. In an era where authenticity matters more than ever, this makes them look like corporate thieves rather than culture champions.

The Bigger Picture

Music rights are tricky, and the systems to acquire music rights are horribly outdated and simply not set up to facilitate the immense influx of requests for a growing amount of content like this. Arguably, when it comes to pricing this IP, the model still is based on the way that big TV campaigns seen by everyone would be priced. Furthermore, platforms like Instagram or TikTok put up no guardrails to avoid this as it would probably mess with their business model of selling advertising space.

Times they are a-changing, and we will get to a situation where fast, simple and fair licensing at reasonable pricing for all involved will become available. We at Ringo consider this the $20B micro-licensing opportunity that will be shaped over the next three years. In between that time, we'll see a bloodbath of lawsuits, with rights holders cashing in on long overdue infringement and some smart brands settling beforehand.

These industries, both advertising and music, will get a lot older, Bud Weiser (🥁) as we go along.