Anheuser-Busch Wants The FTC To Investigate Whether Coors Light Really Is 'The World's Most Refreshing'

AdWhen MillerCoors released hyperbolic ads claiming that the Coors Light beer can was, in fact, "the World's Most Refreshing Can" with "Beer on the inside, Science on the outside," rival Anheuser-Busch had one thing to say: "Prove it."

A-B took its qualms to the Council of Better Business Bureaus' National Advertising Division (NAD), which then ordered MillerCoors to explain how its beer can was scientifically better than its competitors. Does it truly provide a "smoother, more refreshing pour"?

To which MillerCoors essentially responded: "Lol."

According to a Council of Better Business Bureaus press release:

The advertiser respectfully declined to provide a substantive response to the challenge, which it characterized as “frivolous,” defended the claims at issue as either puffery or literally truthful and noted that it expects that all of the “World’s Most Refreshing Can” television and radio spots and related digital campaigns currently running to be permanently discontinued by the end of September.

So now the NAD is sending the complaint all the way up to the Federal Trade Commission.

An NAD spokesperson said that "it's particularly unusual for a major advertiser not to participate" in the review. It only referred four of 111 cases to the FTC last year.

But MillerCoors might have started this chain of events. Adweek reports that in 2010, MillerCoors challenged A-B for its claims about Select 55.

Here's one of Coors Light's challenged, highly scientific, ad: