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player ready...There’s winning at the Super Bowl. And then there is total dominance.
When it comes to advertising on Super Sunday, Anheuser-Busch just moved into dominance mode.
A-B, a consistent home-run hitter during the big game, bought an extra 30-second spot on the Jan. 26 telecast, giving the nation’s top brewer 11 30-second time slots. That totals 5 1/2 minutes of airtime–the most it has had in several years.
Though A-B gets a discount because it is the biggest buyer, the game will still cost it tens of millions of dollars. Prices for a 30-second spot on the ABC telecast jumped nearly 16 percent over last year, to $2.1 million.
“From top to bottom it’s the strongest lineup we’ve had,” Bob Lachky, vice president of brand management and global creative chief for A-B, said Thursday, a day after he and president August Busch IV pored over focus-group research on the spots.
A-B’s Super Bowl ads are watched carefully by the marketing industry as a bellwether. If the brewer is successful in gaining high consumer recall scores after the game, other advertisers try to replicate its formula.
A-B bought the extra spot to squeeze in a commercial for its new Michelob Ultra brand, which went national recently. And five of the brewer’s advertising agencies, including main agency DDB Chicago and Chicago-based Fusion Idea Lab, will have spots in the game.
As usual, A-B is sticking with a formula that has worked–mainly humor. Most of the airtime will be for its top-selling brand, Bud Light. New Budweiser spots will be featured, plus Michelob Ultra. A-B will also run a responsible-drinking spot featuring country singer Tim McGraw.
In one of the more humorous spots expected to run, A-B will feature the Budweiser Clydesdales playing a football game–similar to a spot it ran several years ago. This time, they wait while a play is being “officially” reviewed.
The spot was created by Boston-based Hill Holliday, which produced last year’s dramatic spot showing the Clydesdales bowing before Ground Zero in Manhattan.
Also new this year is a subtheme on its Budweiser advertising. Though much of the Budweiser advertising still carries the “True” tagline, Lachky said at least one spot from Fusion will feature a new lifestyle/quality message and use the line “Think fresh. Drink fresh.”
When it comes to Bud Light, one ad will be a takeoff of a strongest-man contest, with one contestant running with an industrial-size refrigerator on his back filled with Bud Light. He is chased by the crowd, which is trying to get the Bud Light.
A-B dials up the spending at a time when its advertising message differs dramatically from competitors. While Coors Brewing Co. and Miller Brewing Co. dialed up the sex–and interest–in advertising for Coors Light and Miller Lite, A-B shows no plans to veer from its approach.
“The biggest mistake you can make when you go for a sliver of the market is that you exclude customers,” Lachky said. “Especially on the Super Bowl, you have to have work that’s broad.”
Highlights talks to agencies: Columbus, Ohio-based children’s magazine publisher Highlights For Children Inc. is talking to four Chicago agencies about its advertising account. Leo Burnett USA, Euro RSCG Tatham Partners, Campbell Mithun and Cramer-Krasselt are believed to be involved.
On the move: Retired Leo Burnett Chairman and Chief Executive Hall “Cap” Adams Jr. is being inducted into the American Advertising Federation Advertising Hall of Fame. Adams retired from the agency in 1991. Also being inducted are Phil Dusenberry, former chairman, BBDO North America; John H. Johnson, publisher and chairman, Johnson Publishing Co.; the late Gen. David Sarnoff, chairman, RCA; and Dave Thomas, founder, Wendy’s International, who died last year. The induction ceremony takes place March 18 at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Rod Zimmerman, who oversees WBBM-AM 780 and WSCR-AM 670, added the senior vice president/market manager title for the Infinity Chicago Radio Group.
Defender deal closes: The deal to sell Sengstacke Enterprises, owner of the Chicago Defender and three other African-American newspapers, to Real Times Inc. for $10.9 million closed Thursday, sources said. Anthony Licata, a partner at Shefsky & Froelich Ltd., who represented the estate’s trustee, James Lowry, wouldn’t comment.