@HeyBeerDan
  • WHO IS "HeyBeerDan?"
  • TITLE INDEX to all articles
  • CONTACT HeyBeerDan

Why Budweiser's social-media wins are meaningless

2/28/2014

 
Reiterating: Buzz ain't biz.

At the just-concluded Anheuser-Busch distributor convention, their new top marketing guy joined the CEO in bragging about the online views Budweiser's puppy and Bud Light's "up for whatever" SuperBowl commercials generated. Over 60 million in all. And then, given the brewer's continuing largely lackluster brand trends, he pleaded for patience from the audience. 

So, how long will it take before Budweiser's social-media clicking turns into bar-call making? 

Based on the evidence, probably never.

Not long after the SuperBowl, the monitoring service, BrandIndex, documented precisely what the Budweiser puppy ad achieved. And more important, what it failed to achieve. We printed their data then, and we re-print it here. (Perhaps the Bud guys missed it.)

To be sure, the level of "buzz" was historic.
Picture
But all that buzz was generated by, and centered on, the entertainment value of the ad. As the chart below demonstrates, none of it increased purchase-interest. 
Picture
Bragging about buzz that results in no positive influence on the business? Most distributors I know are too sharp to fall for it.

How craft beers convert buzz into biz.

The primary communications medium behind the remarkable growth of the vast majority of craft beers is social-- online and mobile. The emerging craft brewers couldn't afford to spend a cent on the expensive media Big Beer dominates. So, they developed their own powerful, and far cheaper, social-media expertise. How? They discovered and exploited the distinction between the social medium, and the social message. 
It's simple, but profound: The beer comes first in nearly all the craft-beer buzz. Unlike Budweiser, there are no puppies, no Arnold Schwarzenegger ping-pong. Virtually all craft-beer social marketing centers on facts about the beer: how it's made, where it's available and featured, how it tastes. The beer is the entertainment.
Picture
Sample craft-beer social-media buzz focuses on... the beer.
Unless and until Big Beer figures out how to capture interesting, appealing, and compelling facts about their beer in a social-media context, we can all-- distributors included-- expect more attempts at entertainment... and more sales disappointments.

Without a change in Big Beer's message, patience is no virtue.


More proof masculinity sells: An advertising doppleganger

2/23/2014

 
Picture
Good old-fashioned beer advertising.

Traditional camaraderie among young men engaged in manual labor in the great outdoors. Hard to get more manly than that. But for good measure, toss in a voice-over delivering this rugged-individualist message:

"Some people say... you can't keep doing the same thing and expect great results. We're not some people." 

Heck, a beer commercial with this approach could've been made thirty years ago, right? 

Take a look...
Now, here's a second ad, its doppleganger.

More young men, another log cabin needing to be built. Where else? Up in the mountains. And to top it off, Mister Masculinity, Sam Elliot, once again with another we're-not-like-everybody-else message:

"While most families bring the tree to the house, Ram families bring the house to the tree."  

Guts. Glory. Ram. 

But this ad couldn't have been made twenty years ago. The truck's too new.
So, of all the things these two commercials share in common, is the theme of traditional masculinity with an ethic of hard work and individualism their most noteworthy similarity?  

It is not. 

The most important would be the dramatically positive sales trends both Ram trucks and Coors Banquet beer have enjoyed for a good long time now behind their decidedly masculine campaigns.
Picture
Draw your own conclusions.  Pardner.


<<Previous

    Subscribe to New-article updates from HeyBeerDan

    * Note: Certain video links may not function in emailed articles.
    Picture

    The Author

    Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

    For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

    Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

    If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

Proudly powered by Weebly