Content area
Bud.TV's approach to selling beer is decidedly low-key. A-B commercials will be posted on the site, and strategically placed Bud Light or Budweiser products will appear when shows portray bar or party scenes. Also, viewers will be able to post their own spoofs of Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" ads.
A-B is doubling its spending on online ventures, including Bud.TV, to 10 percent of its advertising budget, [Tony Ponturo] said. TNS Media Intelligence estimates A-B's 2005 U.S. advertising spending at $606.7 million.
"At first, it will be difficult to connect the dots directly" from Bud.TV to beer sales, Ponturo said. But the site eventually could allow A-B to send out e-mails and polls to registered viewers, grabbing key feedback about the company's brands.
In the new "reality" show "Truly Famous," an actor poses as "Crisanto," a fictional Spanish film star who tricks the unwitting into treating him as a celebrity.
In one episode, Crisanto visits a luxury-car dealership in Beverly Hills, sporting an entourage of manager, bodyguard and paparazzi. Of course, no one admits that he hasn't heard of Crisanto. Without an ID or a drivers license, the fake celebrity borrows a new Porsche for the weekend.
However, you won't be able to watch the show on network television - or even on cable. Instead, the episodes will be available on a website owned by Anheuser-Busch Cos.
Welcome to A-B's latest way of marketing beer.
During Super Bowl XLI Sunday night, the nation's largest brewer officially will take the wraps off Bud.TV, its new online bid to capture the fickle attention span of twenty-somethings.
With a half-dozen channels of sports, comedy and reality shows calculated to appeal to young, Web-connected adults, Bud.TV represents a shift into the edgy, hip and potentially lucrative world of "branded entertainment."
Anheuser-Busch, already known for its heavy spending on traditional television advertising, is getting into the business of orchestrating programming as well as commercials.
Though the programming won't start until late Sunday, Bud.TV visitors can get the gist of it through teasers and trailers available on the website. One show offers a clothing makeover for clueless guys, orchestrated by a trio of attractive women. Another shows a chimpanzee replacing mechanics, artists and dental-office workers in their own jobs.
"We're following the consumer in many ways," said Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing at A-B's domestic brewing company. "Because this consumer group is so intrigued by the Internet, it makes sense."
Those consumers, especially Bud.TV's target audience of young adults ages 21 to 27, are leading A-B into online avenues that supplement the stalwart 30-second commercial.
"Nobody feels that the 30-second commercial is dead," said Mark Owens, Los Angeles-based managing director of Ketchum Entertainment Marketing, which coordinates partnerships between advertisers and Hollywood.
However, consumers are "being assaulted by a whole lot of different mediums all at once," Owens said. "And they're getting smarter about watching what they want to watch."
Hence Bud.TV. The basic idea was hatched after last year's Super Bowl, when A-B's commercials were viewed 22 million times on the Internet after the game and downloaded 400,000 times.
Commercials as content
Some A-B commercials are "content" in their own right - considered by viewers to be attractions rather than interruptions.
Executives believed A-B could "stretch this concept beyond the 30- second" commercial, said Ponturo, who is leading the online venture. "We understand how to provide relevant content. ... We came to the conclusion that it was worth the old college try."
The company enlisted the services of DDB Chicago, one of
A-B's primary advertising agencies, to help screen ideas for shows and organize production.
DDB Chicago even has produced a comedy sketch show for the website. The ad agency already has made 57 episodes, and it plans to roll out one each day, said Todd Brandes, vice president and executive producer. "That was always the idea, to keep people coming back every day," he said.
The average length of the shows will be about four minutes, and content gradually will be added over several weeks.
On Monday, Bud.TV will have 60 to 90 minutes of original programming, Ponturo said.
The programming skews toward young men, but Ponturo said the idea is to make content that will appeal to both sexes.
Bud.TV's approach to selling beer is decidedly low-key. A-B commercials will be posted on the site, and strategically placed Bud Light or Budweiser products will appear when shows portray bar or party scenes. Also, viewers will be able to post their own spoofs of Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" ads.
But A-B is betting that simply branding the network with the word "Bud" will be enough to build brand loyalty and link its beers to the image of cool.
A-B is doubling its spending on online ventures, including Bud.TV, to 10 percent of its advertising budget, Ponturo said. TNS Media Intelligence estimates A-B's 2005 U.S. advertising spending at $606.7 million.
"At first, it will be difficult to connect the dots directly" from Bud.TV to beer sales, Ponturo said. But the site eventually could allow A-B to send out e-mails and polls to registered viewers, grabbing key feedback about the company's brands.
Verifying viewers' ages
Bud.TV's potential appeal to underage viewers was one of the first stumbling blocks for the project.
Like the rest of the alcohol industry, A-B uses the honor system to verify that Web visitors are at least 21 years old. Visitors are asked for their birth dates at the entrance to beer sites.
Critics argued that this honor system easily allows underage children to enter.
A study made public in 2004 by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University found that 13 percent of all in- depth visits to 55 branded-alcohol websites were by underage people.
A-B points out that a report by the Federal Trade Commission in 2003 found that technology did not permit advertisers to limit sites to legal-age visitors.
However, A-B has toughened its stance on Web access, and is using new technology to verify age.
Potential users seeking to enter Bud.TV first must register, providing a name, birth date and home ZIP code. Washington-based Aristotle Inc. will verify each person's age by immediately checking the information against databases, such as drivers license records and voter registration lists.
If Aristotle can't confirm an age of 21 or older, the person won't be allowed access to Bud.TV.
By April, the system will be introduced on all of A-B's beer- branded sites, including Budweiser.com and Budlight.com.
Bud.TV will feature "things that are edgier - things that you wouldn't see on CBS and NBC," Ponturo said. That helped convince A- B to introduce the more-stringent age-checking software.
"It's good that they've put in a stronger verification system," said David Jernigan, executive director of the marketing center at Georgetown. "It's absolutely a step in the right direction."
Credit: Jeremiah McWilliams; ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Copyright Pulitzer Publishing Company Feb 4, 2007