Advertising The Beer Way

I was browsing through youtube and stumbled across a fantastic beer advertisement. My interest and enthusiasm grew to higher levels as I searched for more and more of beer advertisements only to be surprised to find out that each advertisement was unique and better than the previous one. It was hard not to enjoy them. What I found that beer was strongly associated with sports. But as I saw more of it, I found it had venues beyond sports. The bottom line of beer advertising promises good times; great parties, travel, festivals, notorious pranks and generally being able to escape from your daily life into world of fun, travel and festivities.  We often talk about consistency in the communication to create a strong and long lasting impact on the viewer. But with beer campaigns that seem to change almost monthly and tag lines that rarely last for more than a football season. The advertisements might seem entertaining but are strategic as well. Here are a few advertisement I liked along with their corresponding marketing strategy that did yield for me surprising lessons..

1. Give yourself a good name (Heineken)

The Europeans are always known to promote their products with a sense that they are more upscale and respectable either you go to a bar or a ball. The ad shows a guy making bold decision (drinking beer with the scary bosses’ daughter) and congratulating him on the choice. It reinforces the message that what beer you choose says something important about who you are, so choose well.

2. The Patriotic Beer (Fosters)

The Australians have a thing for Beer and there is no denying it. This advertisement seems to be a video on Australia that shows Australian lifestyle; things that Australians do, that Australians are good at, the wars, the kangaroo, wrestling with crocodiles, etc. As the lines go irresistible they end with “Australians brew the best beer on Earth” showing freshly brewed Fosters Beer. With a patriotic theme and a sense of pride, the advertisement must have got the Australians off the hook. (Offcourse this Ad was meant for Australia and not other countries.)

3. The Bud Light Bump (Bud Light)

Now this brand does it all, and does it all whit humour. Sorry I couldn’t shortlist one ad campaign by Bud Light because each one of it as good as the other. They use anyone.. dogs, cats, tigers, ferrets; and they do it anywhere.. House, party, office, stadium. They simply forget about the product features and focus on the simple message that one will do almost anything for beer… Bud beer. The strategy which seems buried in most of their ads is the unwavering loyalty that the guys in their ads have for Bud Light. They will build houses out of it, jump out of planes, and even walk around naked for a day just to get more of it. Neither the name of the beer is entirely unforgettable, but also the ads stand out for being entertaining.

4. Be Unique Be Guinness

A popular ad for Guinness beer features the concept of sharing beer with your friends in a naughty way. It’s a wonderful commercial which shows a bottle of Guinness beer kept over a rocking naked chick (well not completely) and yeah you get the rest of the picture. As they say “sex sells”, the commercial sets the beer apart more than anything else. The commercial is for people who love nothing more than celebrating life with  a friend or two and this is exactly what beer can do with.

5. The Big Ad (Carlton Draught)

Probably the best one I ever came across. I would like to call this as “Honest Advertising”. Using Old Spice theme in a beer ad and adding subtitles so that no word goes unheard, the advertisement speaks for itself and its motive. It’s a big ad, it's so freaking huge. It's expensive and this ad better sell some beer. Nothing can better explain the motive behind an ad in any better way than this one.

My Social Media Blunders

So after reading atleast a hundred blogs and articles on what to do to promote your company/product online, and speaking to experts on the field I thought of implementing the methods and try to find the results for myself. I'm not not here to tell you what worked for me. Instead let me share where I failed, and failed miserably.

Mutual Purpose: So when I tried to get people to join an online community my conversion was hardly one fourth. Disappointing for sure but the main reason was that I was trying to give people what they where not interested in. Also i am assuming that the small fraction that did join in, simply did so because I(as a friend) had sent the request or some simply joined in without any real interest. Finding the balance between what people want and what you offer is not that easy. If you get that, hey you cracked it!

The Facebook Craze: This particular social network is more for the community than it is for the bottom line, and its tough for marketers to get their message in on a site that's focused on communicating with your friends rather than finding stuff to buy. I made this mistake. I tried to sell rather than communicate. People will buy if they get a hang of a product. Don't push on them, they will retaliate.

Keep it alive and kicking: Nothing happens more often than you might realize. Stagnating pages, inactive communities and your social media endeavor is burdened with dead weight and will slowly slip out with little or no fanfare. Be it your blog, forum, pages or applications, if you don't ignite it, you don't accomplish anything; except perhaps successfully wasting your time, energy and perhaps even your money.

The wrong people: Just because one has a profile on a social network or one twittered once, does not mean that he is regular or socially active online. Yes, they did give me an impressive "likes" or "members" but that's not exactly the big win I was hoping for. I was toasted. My space looked like it was an "only admin campaign". I actually brought in a bunch of "Web Gazing Sheep" who would actually consume anything but media.

Get People Talking Aint Enough: OK so i was successful in one of my ventures to establish a mutual value for my  target audience. My venture seemed successful in establishing trust and credibility. But was I able to discover the new black for the next season? I failed again. Interaction ceased and I lost my audience.

My Content Sucked: My big fat blunder. I got involved in social media, my enthusiasm was great and I probably had it in spades at the start of my venture. But instead of creating  content that get most attention, I focused too much on meaningful content. End result, it was dull and boring, not the kinds that the people in the community liked.

Absent today, kicked tomorrow: The online world moves faster than your world. You stagnate once and you loose your viewers forever. When you are on the Web World just keep a finger on the pulse of the readers. Where do they move? On the orbit that offers the most. Everyday a new orbit is formed and if you are slow you are publicly outed.

Lesson Learned:

What one might consider a success may be a failure to someone else, depending on the desired outcome.
 
Number of hits does not equal Number of reads.
 
The more the members, the more merrier - So not true
 
Don't do the "Hard Sell".
 
Don't show up as a company spokesperson, brand representative, sales executive or anything else - Simply show up as a Real Human Being.