“We’re delighted our first efforts into interactive TV have been such a success.  It’s provided Budweiser with a cool way to connect with beer drinkers, and helped cut through the clutter of football messages bombarding consumers during the build up to the World Cup finals.  The ticket promotion was an ideal hook giving the brand real value by using the platform to give consumers a great brand experience, which has enhanced the brand image and driven claimed propensity to purchase.”  Oliver West, Consumer Marketing Controller, Anheuser-Busch.

Background 

In August 2003, Budweiser became the official beer of the FA Premier League (F.A.P.L).  Coming to the game as a new sponsor, they wanted to make consumers aware of their sponsorship.  As an American brand, they also knew they needed to earn the right to be part of the “beautiful game”.

Working together with advertising agency RKCR/Y&R, they developed “You do the Football, We’ll do the Beer”.  “Coach” is the third execution in this highly successful campaign.  The previous executions were run as linear TV ads, with accompanying outdoor and press coverage.  Budweiser decided to explore interactive advertising for “Coach”, a media they hadn’t used before.

Campaign Objectives

• To engage Budweiser’s target market, 18-34 year old consumers
• To communicate that Budweiser are official sponsors of the FIFA 2006 Word Cup
• To offer consumers the chance to win FIFA 2006 World Cup tickets
• To drive purchase consideration for Budweiser

Research

 Research was conducted to assess the effect of the campaign on key measures; namely reach, awareness, impact on brand perceptions of Budweiser, and impact on purchase consideration for Budweiser.

There were 2 bursts of activity.  From the first burst it was found that 24% of 18+ Sky Digital adults recognized the Budweiser interactive ad with almost 400,000 of those choosing to press red “to win FIFA World Cup tickets”.

The second burst used a different creative but the same call to action and saw increased ad recognition to 32% with nearly 490,000 pressing red .    

Three sample groups were researched - ad interactors, viewers to the ad and non-viewers to the ad. When asked “do you know who any of the official partners or sponsors of the 2006 World Cup are”, Budweiser were more than twice as likely to be mentioned by interactors than viewers to the ad with over two-thirds of interactors spontaneously recalling Budweiser first.  And it was 11 times more likely to be mentioned by interactors than non-viewers to the ad.

The research asked “for which beer or lager have you seen or heard any advertising for, or seen sponsoring events recently?” and over 70% of interactors spontaneously mentioned Budweiser first over any other beer or lager.  This grew to nearly 9 out of 10 interactors spontaneously mentioning Budweiser advertising.  Additionally, the % of viewers to the ad spontaneously mentioning Budweiser was also extremely high. (See chart for more details)

When asked about ad appraisal, interactors were significantly more likely to agree with positive statements. (See chart for more details)

 Interactors claimed to have spent an average of just over 7 minutes interacting but 38% thought they’d spent 10 minutes or more interacting!  “Well, the thing I liked the most was playing the heading game.  It was quite addictive actually.  I played it once and I’ve been on it every day since”.

90% of the interactors played the “Heads Up” game to win World Cup tickets – “the chance to win tickets, play the game for a couple of hours” - but 74% also entered the Passport to Germany and 36% had a look at Beer Leaders – “Everyone wants to win tickets to the World Cup and it makes Budweiser well known”.  The opportunity to win tickets was the initial pull but the other sections were of interest too!

Interactors gave the ad a mean score of 8.9 out of 10 and were much more likely to agree that Budweiser is modern and up-to-date, a good quality lager, is involved with football and particularly refreshing.

When asked “if you were going out drinking tomorrow in a pub, bar or at some event, which brand of beer or lager would be your first choice?  Which others would you consider?” interactors were much more likely to spontaneously mention Budweiser – significantly more so than for any of the other major competitors. (See chart for more details)

A similar picture was shown for in-home drinking with 36% of interactors mentioning Budweiser first and 64% mentioning Budweiser at all.

Finally, a massive 90% said they were more likely to choose Budweiser having interacted regardless of pre-disposition to the brand.