Toolbox Studios Blog

Product Review: Bud Light Golden Wheat

At Toolbox, we always have our ear to the street listening for the next cool product, service or trend. And after being tagged by some well-targeted online PR, I recently had the opportunity to sample Anheuser-Busch’s latest and greatest concoction, Bud Light Golden Wheat.

Bud Light's new Golden Wheat is, in a word, good. I was pleasantly surprised. It has a clean, light taste associated with Bud Light, but it’s different enough to make Bud Light fans feel as though they are broadening their horizons. From a marketing perspective, it makes sense. Americans are just now beginning to really try and accept wheat beer while AB is continually looking for new ways to gain market share by introducing new brands or new products under the flag of existing brands. They have made wheats before under the Michelob and Shock Top flags, but the Bud Light brand is huge. Beer geeks may look down at this as an attempt to make a corporate and less-than-authentic knock off of a Belgian-style wheat ale, and they may be right. But, as the average American beer consumer is coaxed out of their shell and into trying something unfamiliar, the whole American brewing community benefits. Call it a “gateway beer” to Craft for the uninitiated. AB’s sheer muscle behind the Bud Light brand, combined with catching the wave of a newly popular style of beer, should prove powerful and profitable. As for package design, that’s for another post...

The new ale's nationwide release is scheduled for October 5th, 2009. For more information, check out Anheuser-Busch's official press release.

by Mark Broderick, Toolbox Studios' Food and Beverage Account Director

Reflections from a Toolbox Design Intern

by Jamie Feola

One word: MacGyver. Give me a double-monitor G5 and a mouse and I can do anything.

I already can’t imagine being an intern at any other company. I’ve seen every facet of the industry that I hear about and a whole lot more. From logo and magazine design to beer research (really!); from calling radio stations and faxing trafficking instruction sheets to the day I received a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition issue I helped design, I can say my classmates and friends are fully jealous. Besides, now I can happily say that my work has been seen by far more than just my parents and close friends!

I got to witness the birth of a coworker’s baby, spent a few days in the office with Maggie the terrier mix, made mandatory breakfast taco runs on Fridays, had a 21st birthday party thrown for me, and became extremely close to the whole Toolbox family that I will undoubtedly keep in touch with. They even let Kathryn—the other intern—and me loose on the Today Show when they visited San Antonio! I woke up every morning at the crack of a college kid’s dawn (7:30 am) with a goofy smile knowing I would spend 6 hours doing what I love. What was really a 13-week internship seemed like a few quick days.

All in all, I felt like everything but an intern the whole time at Toolbox; I was never chained to a computer chair or forced to complete menial tasks; I never even had to brew coffee (which, to this day, I still don’t really know how to do), and I was never looked down upon. Did my college friends with other internships get to attend photo shoots, recording sessions, client lunches, and client meetings with senior management? I seriously doubt it. Everyone here has shared a wealth of knowledge with me—valuable lessons that I now have under my belt. Toolbox helped me learn that working in our industry is serious stuff that can also be a boatload of fun—knowing that I will eventually get to work at a place like Toolbox makes hours upon hours spent designing in a 24-hour college computer lab working towards my degree completely worth it.