Product: BUDWEISER BUD LIGHT LIVING PHONE

Year: 2014
What a great project to get the privilege to take part in.  The brief was simple – they had some plastic and metal shells for the phones that looked amazing, but they needed working electronics stil

Unfortunately, 2 large engineering firms had already been working on it for 6 months, but after all that time still failed to produce working electronics.  I was asked if I could get one unit running in 24 hours… yup, 24 hours!!   And I did!   Mark Bovey and I pulled one heck of an all-nighter, and built and programmed a rats’ nest of electronics so the agency could wow the Budweiser team.

After that I shifted my focus to getting some more professional looking pcb (circuit boards) designed and running with just one week so they could have more units, and make sure they’d last through extended usage.   Due to the extreme time constraints there wasn’t time to get them made in a factory, so I etched the copper myself in my dining room, because who doesn’t keep toxic acids in their home?

The electronics for the unit included lights, sound, and a bluetooth phone handset. When a call came in the unit would do a light and sound animation and then the phone would pop up out of the unit.

The 3 phones we built have been used hundreds of times now and put on quite a show. What was the purpose?  Budlight was awarding people, sometimes with cash, sometimes parties, but always an amazing experience.  The phone was the gateway to this experience. Someone would present it to the person, usually in a public place as a surprise, and on the other end it might be Steve Aoki or someone else, live calls and exciting news.