Different Brands without Real Differentiation

Budweiser and Budweiser Select

Anheuser-Busch presented three more commercials in the Super Bowl, two for Budweiser, the two hundred year old lager beer, and one for the newer Budweiser Select brand, which was launched just two years ago, in 2005. In these three commercials, Anheuser-Busch again demonstrates the pattern of apparently unaccountable advertising, which cannot reasonably be expected to increase market share.

The King of Beers

Let us first look at Budweiser, the original lager brand of beer. Amazingly, this brand seems to have a weak Marketing Strategy. Beer, like the light beer market is also very big, with $30 billion in sales. Budweiser is the undisputed market leader of this market, and as such, should be expected to lead the charge to expand the beer market, winning new users from other kinds of beverages. The same should be true of its advertising strategy, but there seems to be no advertising strategy at all. The two commercial featured at the Super Bowl are “Dalmatian,” a 60” spot, and a 30” spot. Together, they gave us the impression that this was more advertising just for the sake of advertising. Let’s look at the first commercial. Although this is a long commercial, with a whole minute to play with, there is no attempt at any Selling Idea.

There is a tag line, which is featured exclusively at the end in a pack shot. The story is about a white dog that seems to be down and out, hungry, and neglected. As a parade passes through the local main street, the dog notices a Dalmatian sitting next to the driver of one of the horse carriages, and the dog eyes the Dalmatian enviously. A car driving through a puddle then splashes the dog, and the dirt falling on the dog generates a polka dotted pattern not unlike that of a Dalmatian. So, the dog joins the carriage on the other side of the driver, and eventually is caressed by the queen of the parade. During the ‘lucky’ end of the commercial, a crooner sings about luck being like a ‘kick in the head’. That’s it. In addition, a ‘super’ saying “King of Beers” in the pack shot.

Crabs Rule

The other spot involves sophisticated computer graphics, featuring thousands of crabs on a beach otherwise populated by human beings. One crab notices a bucket with two bottles of Budweiser Select sticking out of the ice into the air, and calls all the other crabs to come and move the bucket to a more secluded location on the beach. Then the crabs all gather in front of the bucket with the two bottles and worship what appears to be a crab-shaped form made up of the bucket and the bottles, with a setting sun behind it, adding a radiance to the bucket/bottles combo. The crabs all then make appropriate worshiping crab-sounds, and motions with their claws, and the whole effect is quite charming. Here again, is the pack shot featuring the Tag Line – “King of Beers.”

The Select Promise

Budweiser Select is supposed to be a special premium new brand of beer that is especially flavorful light beer, as its descriptor “Select” would suggest. Although it is supposed to be special, it is priced along with Budweiser and Bud Light, not allowing even price to support its unique reason for being.

The Marketing Strategy of the new beer brand seems to be aimed at the younger market, if only because they take pains to feature the rapper-entrepreneur JayZ and feature highly sophisticated computer graphics. However, as in the case of the main Budweiser advertising, Select’s advertising strategy seems to be unmotivated and lackadaisical. The single 30” commercial is sophisticated and interesting, if only because it is unusual. This spot features Don Shula, the famous former coach of the Miami Dolphins, and the rapper-entrepreneur JayZ playing a game of American football that is holographically projected on the table between them. They manipulate their respective teams with spoken instructions and hand movements. After an initial touchdown, by JayZ’s team, Don’s team scores a field goal, and would have won the game, but a spectator blew the virtual ball back from the virtual goalposts. Don then says that their next game will be played in a Dome (ostensibly to avoid spectator generated weather!) and JayZ responds, ‘next time we’ll play for rings (implying Super Bowl rings). There is then a pack shot with the select “crown.”

Overall, all three commercials, for both the original Budweiser and the new Budweiser Select left us with the impression that there is not much strategic process in the marketing and advertising departments at Anheuser-Busch.

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