ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch is generating lots of buzz with an ad equal parts bawdy and hilarious, but you won’t see it on television, and it barely mentions the beer it’s advertising.
Dubbed “Swear Jar,” the too-risque-for-TV ad debuted on the Internet in 2007. A minute long, it begins with an office worker asking about a jar at the reception desk. It’s a “swear jar,” he’s told: Anyone who swears puts in a quarter. The expletives fly when workers learn the money will be used to buy a case of Bud Light (the roughly 17 bad words are bleeped out).
“Poop,” a mousy woman says as she struggles with the copy machine. “Doesn’t count,” a co-worker tells her. “Shut the $% up!” she shoots back.
It’s part of a fast-growing growing trend, now increasingly embraced by beer makers and other mainstream marketers. Known as viral ads, such Web-only spots have become YouTube staples and show up in social networking pages, get e-mailed between friends and co-workers, though whether they generate sales remains an open question.
Viral ads have the freedom to run as long or short as they want — no 30- or 60-second constraints. They can cross boundaries even cable TV respects, and they focus on entertainment as much selling the product. Some are shot — or made to look like they’re shot — with hand-held cameras, just like the most of the rest of the videos in those Web venues.
Viral marketing has been around for more than a decade, but viral video ads have grown in popularity as it has become easier to watch and share video on the Web and video-sharing sites like YouTube have grown. Forrester Research estimates interactive advertising was worth $20 billion in the U.S. this year and projects that amount will triple by 2012.
“It’s definitely a trend, definitely happening,” said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights. “But it’s still, relatively speaking, a small part of total (advertising) spending. The big part is still (on) sports on TV. That’s still where the action is for the young adult male target.”
Breweries’ viral ads aim squarely at the young men central to their demographic.
“If you look at what has happened, their attention is getting fragmented,” said Andy England, marketing chief for Golden, Colo.-based Coors Brewing Co. “Even if they’re watching television, they’ve got a laptop on their lap, looking at YouTube or MySpace.”
Coors this spring released two Web ads touting wide-mouth Coors Light cans, dubbed “Smooth Pour Crew.” In one, a couple of young men crash a bar; in another, it’s a backyard barbecue. One guy runs the video camera while the other annoys the beer drinkers, then amazes them with his ability to pour beer from the wide-mouth can into a glass from atop a picnic table, behind his back from a rooftop, from the rafters of the tavern.
The ads have had a combined half-million views, England said.
Marketers say it’s vital to make the ads entertaining.
“And you have to be very gentle in your branding,” England said. “Otherwise, that is something of a turnoff.”
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