Anheuser-Busch to Tone Down Ads

Brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos., known for beer commercials chock full of sexual humor, said Thursday that it planned to tone down its raunchier advertising amid a high-profile outcry against indecency in the media.

“We are taking a more cautious approach to our creative [advertising] ... to understand what the country is feeling right now,” Anheuser-Busch President August Busch IV told ad agency executives at a conference in Miami.

Anheuser-Busch ads scored high among viewers during this year’s Super Bowl football championship game with such stunts as a crotch-biting dog and a flatulent horse, but media critics slammed both of those commercials as being in bad taste.