For many years, he was a spokesperson for the Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company. First appearing in television and radio commercials in the mid-to-late 1960s for Spur Malt Liquor, a Rainier Brewing Company product in Seattle. He appeared in a number of Budweiser advertisements. Budweiser was a sponsor for the Rawls telethon and UNCF. There was no attempt to avoid the similarity between the title of the 1977 album "When You've Heard Lou, You've Heard It All" and his corporate sponsor's slogan "When You Say Bud, You've Said It All". A track on the 1978 album "Lou Rawls Live" features him singing the commercial slogan. Anheuser-Busch, the brewers of Budweiser, suggested his telethon work to him.