A good beer marketing campaign is something we all love to be a part of. There was the Carlton Draught ‘Big Ad’, the VB theme song and who can forget the Hahn ad where the guy does a bomb into a spa bath! There are reasons beer ads have so much appeal and with the new ways companies are marketing themselves online and on social media, there is a whole new realm of creativity that beer ads have wondered into.
I recently stumble upon this video that now has become a viral marketing success. At first glance you wouldn’t tell that it is part of a marketing campaign but just a home movie and this might be part of its success.
The video is part of a Tui beer (NZ) marketing campaign that involves Sean Brown, 29, fitting out the pipes in his brother’s house with beer! There is a whole team of mates helping and they all wait quietly whilst they watch the reaction of Sean’s brother.
The success of the campaign and the virility of it, in my opinion, is based on the fact that it doesn’t seem like an ad. It is clearly filmed with a hand held camera, the production value isn’t necessarily very great and most importantly you only see the Tui logo once and they
never mention verbally that its Tui! If people knew they were watching an ad, they would click away after the first 2 seconds, let alone stick around for the whole 7 minutes!
I rarely will pursue a video for more than 2 minutes unless it’s a funny cat compilation, however this really sucked me in and got me to watch the whole thing. There are three basic elements that Tui got right to engage me and the reason for its close to 1 million views worldwide and these are:
- Element of stupidity
- Appeal to the imagination
- Ability to make the audience want to be involved
Out of these three characteristics I believe that the 3rd really plays the biggest role. The video shows a group of mates, having a good time and a laugh. Everyone who watches the video will want to be there and be part of it and watch his brother’s reaction when he pours beer out of the bathroom tap rather than water. This desire to be there in the video will translate to desire to purchase the beer as there will be positive associations of friendship, laughter and spontaneity made between the video and Tui. This is why it wasn’t necessary to overload the clip with brand logos and mentioning it throughout as this would take away from the creative integrity of the video and disengage the target audience.
What do you think the key to developing a viral video is?
What is/was your favourite beer ad?
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