Who put the Ping in my Pong?
You know the marketing guys at Anheuser-Busch are getting a little long in the tooth when you read that they are going to build a whole campaign around table tennis, more popularly known as ping-pong. The boys at Bud have heard that ping-pong is really cool again and they aim to cash in with a series of national tournaments culminating in finals to be held in Las Vegas. They have partnered with the Mark Gordon Company which produces “Grey’s Anatomy” which, while I have never watched, I don’t think has anything to do with ping-pong. But, showing that he’s up on the-whats-happening-now scene, Gordon Company exec Jordan Wynn claims that ping-pong has sex appeal…”It’s taking on this cool cultural space of short-shorts and retro headbands…..” Retro headbands?? Short-shorts?? No question you’re hep to the in-crowd, Jordan. You don’t happen to be sporting a duck-tail hair cut by any chance?
I don’t know what game the retro headbanders are playing in St. Louis, Augie, but now that you’re owned by a British company, something obviously got lost in the translation. I think it’s entirely possible your instructions were to start sponsoring a game the Brits call PINT PONG and the first word got garbled in transmission. Over here it’s called BEER PONG, Augie…or just PONG…no paddles needed. Just a ball and lots of beer!
Best advice at this point…send duck tail boy back to TV land and back off the ping pong thing. Trust me…Forrest Gump was not a beer drinker.