To help consumers celebrate Friendsgiving, a Thanksgiving celebration with friends that usually happens before or after Thanksgiving, Budweiser is introducing new packaging. The brand of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch will offer a limited-edition, handmade wooden crate with 18 Budweiser beers and two pilsners glasses. In addition, the beer bottles will feature authentic, classic labels from 1918, 1933 and 1976.

Only 10,000 of the wooden crates, which are handmade by Vintage Editions, Taylorsville, N.C., will be available, hitting shelves across the country this week. Consumers who find and purchase one of the 10,000 crates are encouraged to share images of their own holiday parties on social media, using the hashtag #HolidayBuds.

Budweiser also will do a full conversion of 1.6 million cases of 12-, 18- and 24-pack bottles to feature its classic labels, which mark momentous occasions in the brand’s history, the company says. The 1918 label represents the last label before Prohibition, the 1933 label marks the first label following the repeal of Prohibition, and the 1976 label celebrates the Budweiser brand’s 100th anniversary, the company explains.

To promote this holiday-timed packaging, Budweiser also is releasing this week a TV spot titled “Invitations,” which stars real people answering the question: “If you could grab a Bud with any of your friends this holiday season, who would it be … and why?”

 

 

Budweiser will orchestrate reunions for two of the people with friends they haven’t seen in years. The real-life hometown reunions will be filmed as a sequel to the initial commercial, and the brand expects to release these spots in early December.