Taking the concept of branded entertainment to a new level, Anheiser-Busch is planning to launch Bud.tv, an online entertainment network, following the Super Bowl in early February. The New York Times’ Stuart Elliott has all the details—Bud.tv will consist of six channels of comedy, reality, sports and talk programming created for and by Anheuser-Busch. The beer maker is even considering the addition of a “fashion” channel at some point (this I’d like to see.)
One other channel on the drawing board is Bud Tube, a beer-oriented You Tube-esque site, where viewers will be encouraged to “generate their own Anheuser-Busch ads, comedic in nature,” and share them among friends.
The content will come from a number of sources, including, of course, ad agencies. But some other sources cited include companies owned by Hollywood stars like LivePlanet (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon), TriggerStreet.com (Kevin Spacey), and Wild West Picture Show Productions (Vince Vaughn) as well as somall production companies like Omelet and Seed.
In pursuing Bud.tv, Anheiser-Busch is simply following its customers to the online world.
“We still have plenty of strong, traditional national TV venues for our messages such as live sports,” said Anthony T. Ponturo, vice president for global media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, part of the Anheuser-Busch Companies.
Going forward, “the Internet will be equal to or better than television,” Mr. Ponturo said, particularly in reaching the company’s target audience for beers like Budweiser and Bud Light, which is men ages 21 to 34.
One issue for the beer company is how to ensure that underage users don’t become denizens of what I suspect will be extremely popular sites. Think of the viral nature of Anheiser-Busch’s past SuperBowl ads — according to the company, the last round of SuperBowl ads were downloaded 700,000 times and viewed by an additional 22 million people at sites such as Google Video.
Anheiser-Busch’s response to this fear is to require users to register and create profiles. Information will be required (credit card? the name of Paul McCartney’s band after the Beatles broke up? what?) that extends beyond age and birth-date to verify that the user is over 21.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:57 AM|Comments(0)
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