Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Fresh off their USA Today Super Bowl advertising poll victory, Budweiser has flipped the switch on Bud.tv

This could turn out to be one of the biggest stories in advertising this year. Anheuser-Busch will spend over $30 million this year on this online video network. The site is as easy to use as Youtube (well kinda) and features short films like “Finish Our Film”. This mash-up of reality show and making-of-a-film documentary produced by LivePlanet, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company.  Not surprisingly most of the videos lean towards 25-year guy humor with high art concepts like “Replaced by a Chimp” in which a chimp tries to do a real job.

This is a new play on one of the oldest tactics in marketing known as branded entertainment. P&G started it in the age of radio with the soap opera (little know fact: until recently most soap opera actors were employees of P&G as P&G owned the soaps!). There have been many attempts by marketers to create content online that provides a contextual envelope to advertise their brands. This is far and away the most ambitious venture of its kind.

A-B intends to tread carefully in how they promote their brands. They are acutely aware of how easy it would be turn off their audience with excessively blatant promotion. You’ll know it’s for Bud brands but it will be subtle s, so they say.  For me the most interesting thing is the ROI model. $30 million is about 5% of AB’s ad budget and their goal is to reach 2-3 million 21-34 year-old guys per month (lets say 24-36 million exposures per year).  That works out an average of $1 to get each customer to spend time with them. Even compared to a 30 sec spot on the Superbowl that’s expensive. Hopefully each prospect will spend lots of time on Bud.tv, giving A-B the opportunity to put lots of ad exposures in front their customers.  I hope it works.

What do you think?

Adam Turinas