The 30-second TV spot is still king with Anheuser-Busch.
But the King of Beers is also serious about the short film, and beginning early next year it plans to experiment in a big way when it becomes the latest marketer to launch a 7 1/2-minute long-form commercial.
Following in the steps of BMW and other marketers trying to reach a completely different audience, A-B is taking its “True” campaign for Budweiser to a completely different level.
It’s a gamble. Marketers purposely are subtler, and the product usually takes a back seat to the story. BMW Films, for example, introduced a new character, Clive Owen, last year. In new iterations this fall, he’s back rescuing a hostage, among other things, all in his new Z4 roadster, according to Adweek.
Bud’s long-form commercial picks up where the current campaign leaves off. It uses the inappropriate “Greg,” who in the current 30-second version on TV gives a toast to the bride and groom at a wedding, explaining the groom’s many conquests over the years much to the horror of the wedding party as well as the bride’s parents.
In the long-form version, Greg continues to put his foot in his mouth at the same wedding: We see him at the gift table accidentally smashing the gift from the couple sitting next to him. In another scene, he asks a woman when her baby is due, remarking that “she’s big as a house,” only to be told by the woman that she’s not pregnant.
As with the TV spots, DDB Chicago is handling the film version.
The brewer said that the long-form commercial may reach a new audience that doesn’t sit and flip channels.
“What intrigues us is that it gives us the opportunity to provide a brand message that is just in a different form and exposes us to a different customer,” said Bob Lachky, vice president of brand management and head of global creative for A-B. “This viewer might not be a traditional beer drinker.”
A-B’s move as the first major packaged-goods marketer to experiment with the long-form ad is significant. It shows that companies have to be more creative and savvy about how they reach their customers.
This year A-B announced that it would be a charter sponsor of Denver-based Brief Original Broadcasts, known as the BOB Network. The digital TV network, slated to launch early next year, is a new format for short films geared to viewers ages 21 to 34.
“The level of experimentation on brand imaging has never been greater,” said Lachky. “I don’t know if it’s been all good. But the better the film quality and the more unexpected the work is, the better chance you have to cut through.”
More bad news for IPG: Saying that an earnings restatement has “haunted” his advertising agency holding company, John Dooner, chief executive of Interpublic Group of Cos., again apologized to shareholders for the “turmoil.” The company revealed that its latest earnings restatement, in the amount of $181.3 million and due mainly to accounting reporting problems in its McCann World Group division, would lower pre-tax income for 2001 and prior periods.
The company, which owns ad agencies McCann-Erickson and Foote, Cone & Belding, among others, said that its third-quarter earnings would total 2 cents per share on revenue of $1.5 billion. That was well below the 8 cents per share it expected a month ago. The company did not provide an overall income figure for the quarter.
The company said it again would delay releasing details of its earnings to Nov. 14. Sean Orr, Interpublic’s chief financial officer and one of the top executives on the hot seat, indicated in Wednesday’s announcement that more personnel changes are on the way. One will likely be the naming of a chief operating officer–a new position.
Tatham winning Drexel? It appears that Chicago-based Euro RSCG Tatham Partners has won the $10 million upscale furniture-maker Drexel Heritage account in a shootout that included Fallon, Minneapolis, and Young & Rubicam, New York. Neither Tatham nor Drexel could be reached late Wednesday, but Drexel had given word to the other agencies that they were not winning the business.
On the move: Chicago native Richard Swanson, most recently vice president of marketing and programming for Chronicle Broadcasting, was named vice president of marketing and creative services for WBBM-Ch. 2.
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