On January 25, Anheuser-Busch announced that for the first time since 1983, flagship brand Budweiser would not be running a commercial during the Super Bowl.
Instead, they pledged to redirect spending for the airtime to marketing campaigns related to Covid-19 vaccinations. Not the entire $5.6 million of course. Rather, they are committing $1 million of ad inventory to vaccine awareness and education work created by the AdCouncil and Covid Collective. (Ives, 2021)
To announce their intentions, they ran this video on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where it drew 18 million views. (Lukovitz, 2021)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on04UnEzCt8
For comparison, this year's game was watched by 96.4 million people. That's a lot more eyeballs.
But, Nike has proven that cause marketing can be a winner. So the question is, will it be for Bud too?
The Super Bowl provides a once a year opportunity to reach a massive audience. But only a portion of them drink Budweiser. So who are the heavy beer drinkers? How much tv do they watch? Were they likely to watch the Super Bowl?
What are their social media habits? Do all of these social media selections make sense based on the target? Which do you think will be more successful? And why? What about the creative? Will it speak to the target? Does it speak to you?
Ives, N. (2021, January 25) Budweiser Skips Super Bowl Ad, Promises Vaccine Education Instead. wsj.com. Retrieved February 9, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/budweiser-skips-super-bowl-ad-promises-vaccine-education-instead-11611576000#:~:text=Anheuser%2DBusch%20said%20it%20won,to%20Covid%2D19%20vaccinations%20instead.
Lukovitz, K. (2021, February 4) Bud Is A Big Pre-Super Bowl Social Winner, Despite No In-Game Ad. mediapost.com. Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/360263/bud-is-a-big-pre-super-bowl-social-winner-despite.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=121325&hashid=7oLy6BQof_n8qnIdNuaNh1ONxl0
9 comments:
I think it's really interesting to see this report and to watch the game and see budweiser zero commercials. This may be a different division from the rest of anheuser busch, but it was still surprising because I was aware of this corporate social responsibility act before the game.
In regards to corporate social responsibility Ithink this move by Budweiser matches similar trends we are seeing in regards to Covid, Walmart vaccine centers, BLM, Nike, and Energy, United Zero Emissions by 2025. All of these are marketing ploys that are effective in improving their brand image. It will be a smart move for Budweiser to attract more on the fan alcohol buys and endear the love of their die hard fans.
Richie
This Budweiser’s decision worked. Budweiser got more valuable things from this vaccine awareness ad. They earned the public’s attention while saving money. First of all, when I checked their YouTube channel, this video has 12,218,501 views (02/13/2021). It is a massive number for the company’s ad. Budweiser has 54 videos on their YouTube channel, and the average number of videos’ views are around 10,000 views. So the vaccine awareness video’s numbers show this video worked successfully. This video was uploaded two weeks ago, but still, people are writing a comment on this video. The most recent comments are just the day before. I think it was more effective than traditional Super Bowl ad on TV.
Besides Budwiser, I guess many companies will not air their ad at the Super Bowl in the near future. Because The Super Bowl is not the event, it once was. It’s not a cultural experience anymore. There are many new media such as video games, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Snapchat, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc. With these various choices, Americans developed other entertainment habits during the pandemic, and The Super Bowl is not attractive anymore like the past. That’s why sports game viewing in general declines and Netflix subscriptions are skyrocketing. However, The Super Bowl commercial rates did not decline yet. This year the commercial rate was $5.5 million per 30-second spot. So for Budwiser, they saved that money and then got more positive attention than traditional commercial. So it was the right decision for them.
Currently, Budweiser's target customer is younger customers who are in 21 to 27. 44% of them haven't tried a Budweiser, according to the company. This young demographic group wants the company to be more ethical and sustainable in every way, and this ad gave an excellent impression to the target customer group. Actually, the company has done many things to appeal to this group except for this vaccine awareness ad. Young customers asked the company to inform the beers' ingredients transparently, and the company put all the ingredients information on their website. In this kind of trend, making vaccine awareness videos were relevant to their target customers. So from now on, the more important thing is showing their authenticity continuously. If they do this kind of campaign just once, people will doubt their intention, but people will believe the company's authenticity if they do this campaign continuously. It will affect to company's brand images for a long time.
-Hanjo Mok-
I think this marketing behavior is really successful on promoting their brand image.Corporation social responsibility can bring positive public attention for the company.When companies stand out for the good work they’re doing in the community, the media gains interest. With an abundance of not-so-pleasant stories circulating in the papers, it’s nice having a positive news story to share.Therefore, Company gradually have more and more loyal customers through this process.Because more customers buy and think about the products and services from socially responsible company.Consequently, Cause marketing actually benefits bud a lot.
Budweiser makes a wise choice this time. According to the data, the audience of SuperBowl reaches its peak indeed. However, in my opinion, commercials on the COVID-19 could be better. Budweiser has had placed its commercials in SuperBowl during the last 37 years, but who really remembered? My first intuition after I watched the commercial was that Budweiser has abandoned a great chance to make money and put huge efforts into charities, which were moving. I do believe that this strategy of Budweiser will speak to the target.
On the other hand, Budweiser may even enlarge their target audience in this way too. Due to the Covid-19, all humans are concerned about vaccines, so I believe many more people would see the commercial for covid-19 than the Superbowl one. We have to admit that many people would love to drink some beer during a sports game, but covid-19 is a much more focused sensitive topic right now. With the creativity of the commercial, Budweiser would probably receive a better return in investment.
Cause marketing has proven itself to be successful in past instances such as with Coca Cola, and I think Budweiser's decision not to air during the 2021 Super Bowl was interesting. I don't even drink beer or watch very much television however I was originally thrown off when I didn't notice their commercial this year- It is standard annual practice for Budweiser. Upon realizing why, I gave my respect to Budweiser; however it bothers me that they only donated One million whereas it notes the commercial usually costs them between $5-6 Million dollars. This is a rather insignificant sum to Anhauser-Busch, a company who earns an approximate $15.6 Billion dollars in annual revenue. Not to get greedy or disrespectful but one million was the best they could do from the parent company who owns Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois, among 37 other big name brands? And so you skip the commercial in place of doing a donation to pandemic relief- but you only want to donate like 1/6th of what you would normally spend on a gimmicky advertisement? Ill give it to them that this form of cause advertising is creative however I immediately lose some of that respect upon noticing with a few simple searches, just how skimpy they are being with their donation- kind of as though it is only for show and tell, and that is the last reason anyone should ever donate money. This instance of cause advertising may have spoken to the target audience but it did not really speak to me.
This is an interesting post because I am a huge fan of SuperBowl commercials, and each year I look for the "cool ads," and I noticed Budweiser did not have any. Nor did Audi or BMW (some of my faves)
This year is different because of the pandemic, but I don't think it was a good move for Budweiser to pull from this year. Although I'm sure their bottom line won't be affected, why wouldn't you post in the Superbowl for reach? I understand the "cause" statement the company wants to make by being good stewards to communities by addressing a much bigger issue than sales. However, I wouldn't have made the same decision.
The Superbowl, I thought, was the mecca-the holy grail of advertising. Additionally, is the Budweiser target beer drinker the person fighting for social justice and combating COVID-19?
Cause marketing is an important aspect of CSR as the promotional campaign plays the dual purpose of increased profitability and bettering the society. In this case, Budweiser chose to use this aspect of marketing as a way of showing their CSR actions ensuring that the viewers got to understand the vaccine awareness ad. Super Bowl commercials reach a high number of audiences, both beer drinkers and non-beer drinkers that may see the advertising by Budweiser. In this case, the company would have reached a potentially high number of viewers compared to the social media platforms, especially if they still focused on the effects and impacts of the pandemic. This would have been for the particular day of the Super Bowl. However, using cause marketing ensured that they got the attention of the public in millions over an extend period of days or even months as their advert would continue being aired on these various platforms each day, earning more viewers. I think this was the right option as they captured their target customers of the younger generation that mainly use social media for communication and entertainment and most of them would have failed to watch the Super Bowl. Based on the target, the selection of Budweiser makes sense ensuring that the advert becomes successful. AS a young person, it speaks to me and gives me a perspective of how marketing of the product can be successful through such platforms.
On the surface level, Budweiser may have improved its brand image to the superficial viewer. However, I feel that they may have caused more damage than good to its brand. Budweisers target market, I believe will generally be unaffected by the gesture in expressing its support in fighting COVID instead of airing an entertaining super bowl advertisement. Generally, people who drink Budweiser will probably continue to drink it as always. Conversely, the non-superficial potential consumer will view this gesture for what it is, as a billion-dollar corporation looking to exploit an opportunity to gain social goodwill during a global pandemic. The fact that Budweiser overtly is making it known that they are Not airing a Superbowl ad, and instead donating funds to raising COVID awareness seems insincere. If Budweiser was not advertising its donation and "social responsibility", and instead did it without airing a commercial to let the consumer know of the "great" thing they did, it might have seemed genuine. in my view, it could have an adverse effect and repel potential new consumers rather than attract them. I am curious to see if Budweisers marketing ploy actually contributed to new customer acquisition sales, or whether it detracted from new customer acquisition.
for Bud if only they undertake marketing seriously.
Budweiser having their ad not run during the Super Bowl will decrease the promotion of their brand image. Any company organization that wants to remain relevant should do its marketing through ads or other channels often. Remember, even if a company starts today and has numerous ads in their marketing, they will outshine the existing companies if they don't market well. Although Bud's approach is different, the money channeled to marketing campaigns related to Covid-19 is well-timed since most people are eager to know about the vaccine. Spectators in any game would love taking beer, but since Covid-19 is everywhere, gatherings are prohibited. Budweiser will get back a good deal from their input on Covid-19 awareness.
Xinhu Chen
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