The Dude Abides: Icon Returns for SB LIII Ad & Rams Fans Care the Most
For their Super Bowl commercial this year, Stella Artois has resuscitated a pair of fictional embodiments of two major cities’ ethos. One is The Dude, from the Coen Brothers beloved cult favorite, ‘The Big Lebowski.’ Fittingly, fans of this year’s NFC champion Los Angeles Rams count the largest number of Jeff Bridges enthusiasts among their ranks.
Super Bowl LIII is well and fully nigh about now. As usual, there is a quantity of hype surrounding the advertisements that will run during the game that rivals the excitement for the game itself. We’ve been having a blast celebrating our great sport of American-rules football (no one really calls it that), putting our StatSocial audience analysis tool to work, analyzing the audiences of every NFL team, to see where their affinities reside when it comes to everything from beer, to politics, to theme parks, and even to being friendly.
Feel free to head over to the StatSocial blog, and check them all out for yourself.
So What’s All This Then?
A little over 20 years ago, in 1998, two very different tales of two very different cities were first told. One was the ongoing saga(s) of a New York City sex and love columnist and her three best friends. The other spun the tale of a simple Angeleno slacker finding himself embroiled in an ever-increasingly convoluted series of events as he simply sought to get his soiled rug replaced.
Belgian beer, Stella Artois (manufactured by Anheuser–Busch InBev here in the states) have brought back to life the protagonists from each of these properties — both inspiring an almost fanatical devotion among their respective fans — for a one minute spot that is to air during the Big Game.
For many years now, we’ve lived in a world where many — if not even most — of the spots produced for the Super Bowl are posted online well in advance of the game. This one is no exception, so you can check it out by clicking through here.
The spot features Sarah Jessica Parker reprising her role as Carrie Bradshaw, from HBO’s ‘Sex and the City.’ Parker is contrasted by Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, playing her unlikely left coast counterpart, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski. To the few unfamiliar, that would be the main character from the Coen Brothers’ beloved cult classic comedy, ‘The Big Lebowski.’
Keeping things simple this time out, we dove into the stats on the hundreds of thousands of NFL fans who also identify as fans of Jeff Bridges. From there — as you’ll see in the below graphic — we’ve broken out among which team’s fans the largest proportion of Bridges’ admirers are chilling, and went through all 32 NFL fan bases, until we reached the bunch least enamored of Lloyd Bridges’ celebrated son.
Right Where You’d Most Expect It
From both the standpoint of The Dude and Jeff Bridges himself, there is no city on Earth where you’d more expect to find affinity for either man than the City of Angels. Both Jeffs Lebowski and Bridges are distinctly and uniquely products of that oh-so uniquely American town.
Los Angeles, of course, is not a city with just one NFL team. Gather ‘round kids, and we’ll tell you a story. You may think of the Rams as a team who came to Los Angeles from St. Louis. This is technically not incorrect, but that Gateway City tenure was just a 20 year stopover. To the Jeff Lebowskis of this world, the Rams are Los Angeles’ NFL team, and the Chargers belong to San Diego.
Why New Orleans seems comparably distant in their affection for Mr. Bridges is not entirely knowable to us when observing these findings in isolation. As the great city did play host to the annual, and quite well attended, Lebowskifest, on at least one occasion, we’re left to ponder if their issues are non-The Dude related. Perhaps they took umbrage with elements of ‘Tron’ or ‘Tucker.’
Bookmark This Page
We’ll be visiting numerous subjects of this general nature — all highlighting the rich and varied affinities of each NFL team’s fans — in the days running up to Super Bowl LIII.
And check out the written matter in the footer, and reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to see much, much more.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
You can snoop around the greater StatSocial Insights blog by clicking here.