Bob Dylan, Minnesota's musical counterculture icon, has teamed with the famous Clydesdales and loaned one of his signature protest songs for a Budweiser beer television ad scheduled to run during the Super Bowl on Feb. 3.
Along with selling beer, the theme of the ad released Wednesday by the global brewing giant is the promotion of wind as an alternative energy source.
Dylan's original early 1960s studio version of the antiwar treatise "Blowin' in the Wind" plays while eight Clydesdales pull a cart loaded with cases of Budweiser across a sunbathed field of grain dotted with wind turbines sporting the Budweiser logo.
Atop the load sits the horses' trusty partner, a Dalmatian whose jowls and long ears flap in mother nature's breeze.
The 60-second spot winds down with the Dylan singing "The answer is blowin' in the wind" followed by the words "Wind never felt better" and "Now brewed with wind power for a better tomorrow."
Fine print at the close adds that "renewable electricity from wind is one type of energy we use to brew."
Budweiser is one of several megabrands that Dylan has touted in commercials over the years. Others include Apple, Cadillac, IBM, Pepsi and Victoria's Secret.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
