Bud.TV launches during Super Bowl
Steve Safran February 4th, 2007
Watch this, and watch it closely. Bud.TV, the broadband video channel Budweiser is starting up, gets its coming-out party during tonight’s Super Bowl. Anheuser-Busch is getting into the programming business, folks, and the shows aren’t overt Bud ads. The company has hired real producers to make real shows for the channel. The idea is basic: have the viewers come to your channel and it’s automatically promoting your product. And it’s promoting it for the duration of the show. Broadband hookups are already coming to TVs. This is where the ad and marketing dollars are - and should be - going. From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
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.
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. (emphasis added)… 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.
Cory adds: Good idea, but the Bud.TV registration page is ridiculously long. Sure, they need to verify age, but asking for my mobile phone number is over the top. I’ll never watch, and neither will most people, which will doom this to failure.
5 Comments Add your own
1. invitedmedia | February 4th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
“watch this, and watch it closely.”
gladly, but i’ll be watching closely the terminology and how we see it evolve in the not-too-distant present.
“website” should already be a “web channel”.
and the word “broadband” will need a tweek also, lest the cable companies claim the internet to be theirs alone.
i know in michigan they just past a sweeping change to how cable competitors will be allowed in; no longer do they need to go municipality by municipality to get clearance. i think i heard there was a huge lobbying effort to defeat this. wonder who???
2. Michael Gay | February 4th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
What a pain. I can’t register since I recently moved. They want me to call some number to verify my info and give them my DL#.
That’s not a way to build an audience.
3. Don | February 4th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I’m with Michael. This isn’t going to work with that kind of hairy registration. I don’t care how cool it is.
4. thekeywestchannel | February 4th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Q: who was it that said: “the biggest room you’ll ever enter is the room for improvement”?
A: one of the budweiser frogs.
5. Martin | July 10th, 2007 at 8:39 am
That’s not a way to build an audience.
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed