Mindjumpers » Blog Archive » Budweiser Uses Facebook To Involve Fans

Posted by Jonas Klit Nielsen Feb 2nd, 2010

It’s so simple and yet so brilliant, it’s on several levels a great inspirational case for other companies. Budweiser shows how to create involvement – they let their fans decide the next Super Bowl Ad.

1: Use your Facebook page to more than just spam messages. Design a special tab or two and the Facebook page can almost become a microsite on a viral platform – and trust me, the programming language to make this is not that hard that you have to spend a lot of money on making something that works and that’s special.

As you can see on the screen shot, or even better on the Budweiser Facebook page, they have designed a tab, ‘Game Day Pick’, with three short videos of the potential Super Bowl commercial that might be aired. Combined with a little voting feature, they have made their Facebook page, much more appealing than a regular one. The fact that Budweiser have chosen to put a “what do you think” feature just adds sugar on top.

2: Involvement, everyone is talking about it, not a whole lot of companies are doing it. Is it hard? Does not look like it! For a brand like Budweiser, the only thing they are doing is to take three commercials and ask their fans which one they should air at the Super Bowl and thereby give the power to their fans! Budweiser was making the commercials anyway, so why not involve fans and show that their opinion matters!

Don’t give me that “Budweiser is such a big brand, not everyone has budgets for the super bowl or even a TV commercial”! Well, not everyone needs to sell as many products as Budweiser. Take a look at your brand: how can you involve the fans of your product or brand and show that their opinion matter.

And when it comes to the Facebook page, be creative. A whole lot of potential is in the platform – there are plenty of possibilities to do something different and to get attention for it!

And don’t throw the ROI thing at me! It’s time to invest in the possibilities of the future of marketing, the future of branding. I don’t think Budweiser knows the ROI of this campaign. But you don’t build a brand like Budweiser by walking in other brand’s footsteps, you build it by investing in insights and knowledge – also when it comes to marketing and branding.

Seeing Budweiser doing this, almost makes me a Budweiser fan, and I don’t even like Budweiser – I am a Bud light kind of guy.