Will Bud.tv Survive Death Throes for “Edgy” Comeback?
Bud.tv, that undead “entertainment” channel that tried to lure you in with attractive women, chimps, and Chris Farley’s brother will be back, but edgier. And you know it’s bad when the Wall Street Journal article reporting it uses the word “edgy,” in some form, more than once.
Word that Bud.tv will retrench and reformulate comes a mere week after Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV said Bud.tv might “fade away.”
How, you might be asking yourself, will the company that brought me three belching frogs and “Wassup!!” get “edgier?” How will an established marketing behemoth lumber onto the information super highway? Why, they’ll listen to their 21- to 26-year-old employees, of course! Internal focus groups at Anheuser-Busch have had the young adults in to “brainstorm” with execs. “It’s clear to us that the consumer wants more interaction, more conversion and more of a social community,” Tony Ponturo, A-B vice president, global media and sports marketing, told the Journal.
Best case scenario, I see the ad campaign taking on an [Adult Swim] feel and starts using indie bands in their advertising while Bud supplants PBR as the hipster beer of choice (sorry, Jed).
The redesign will include the ever popular flavors of social networking and video. But who are you going to socialize with on a beer WEBSITE! SERIOUSLY!? Why doesn’t Anheuser-Busch cut their losses and get some Silicone Valley 21- to 26-year-olds to make a Facebook application for Bud.tv. I mean, that’s what Red Bull has done anyway.
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When they add video chat with a “beer goggles” filter then we’re really in trouble. Was that too obvious a joke?
Marshall Kirkpatrick on May 30th, 2007 at 12:16 pm - Permalink
Wow, I just went to watch it and they require a valid ID with first and last name.. not a chance. Do they really think i am going to give them that info to watch crappy crap.. uggh. porn is easier..
Revilo on May 30th, 2007 at 1:16 pm - Permalink
I don’t understand why they don’t brand the content and then plaster it everywhere, a la “No Good TV.” There doesn’t seem to be any problem with advertising beer to kids during televised sporting events (”This game brought to you by Bud and Bud Light”) so why not just sponsor the content and let it go free?
Sigh. Dud.tv it is!
Jackson West on May 30th, 2007 at 3:14 pm - Permalink
Craig, I’m confused by your position on this. It seems you’d prefer Bud leave the internet alone. You can’t possibly be against a major advertiser trying to do something newish with their online ad budget, can you? If big advertisers are going to keep increasing their online budgets they’re going to want to find new ways to advertise.
Isn’t advertising one of the things that is supposed to keep the money coming into this internet thing? Don’t you think it’ll be better when they find some more creative solutions than banners?
Chirs on May 30th, 2007 at 8:15 pm - Permalink
Thanks for your comment Chris.
I am not at all against Bud on the internet. I agree that advertising dollars are going to be an increasingly important part of monetizing a variety of facets of web content, especially video content.
However, I wrote this article because I think it is very telling of the difficulties for “old” media advertising giants to cross into “new” media. Bud has had some of the most successful (and expensive) ad campaigns in history (the frogs, “wassup!”) and it says something about this new advertising realm when their first big venture online doesn’t go as planned.
Not every attempt to advertise online has or will work and looking at why the failures failed is just an important as why the successes were successful.
Craig Rubens on May 31st, 2007 at 12:21 pm - Permalink
[...] OK to try new things. Bud.tv was a bit of a running joke at NTV HQ as almost every writer posted a story on it, but despite the failure, at least the company adopted a relatively new technology [...]
R.I.P. Bud.tv « NewTeeVee on February 19th, 2009 at 7:56 am - Permalink
[...] OK to try new things. Bud.tv was a bit of a running joke at NTV HQ as almost every writer posted a story on it, but despite the failure, at least the company adopted a relatively new technology [...]
R.I.P. Bud.tv | Viral Video Maker on February 19th, 2009 at 8:25 am - Permalink