Whether you like puppies or horses or beer, you know that the new Budweiser Super Bowl commercial is genius.
After you wipe the tears from your eyes while looking at your newsfeed on Facebook, you stop and wonder, what? There was no beer in that commercial anywhere. Just a cute guy who works with horses (yes, that one usually works). His dog gets lost and his horses, yes, those horses, rescue him. It’s GENIUS.
The commercial itself is genius.
But, what was more genius was releasing it early. Let’s be honest. Only a handful of people will be really gathering on Sunday to watch “the game” and the ones who are serious will probably not be “gathering” anywhere but their own recliner with their own bag of potato chips.
But, most of the world will follow their time watching the puppy bowl and making corn dip, bean dip, buffalo chicken dip, crock pot cheese dip, pulled pork sandwiches, grilled burgers and brownies with watching the Super
Bowl commercials.
Bowl commercials.
Water coolers everywhere will be exhausted by the talk of who laughed, who cried and “what was the score?”. But, lunch room conversation TODAY – 4 days before the Super Bowl actually airs are not chatting up as much about the game, the players, the statistics or the trash talking…they are talking about a guy who works on a ranch and boards horses and how his cute little puppy ran away, jumped out of an 18-wheeler, ran through the rain and the mud and almost got eaten by a coyote on his way back home.
For 4 days people will be talking about, sharing, commenting on, retweeting and buzzing about the man, his dog and those horses who were heroic.
It’s genius.
Just this week, I saw an article titled “Your Sauce is not Secret”. The sentiment of the article, which I didn’t read every word of, drew from the concept that everyone knows the ingredients of the secret sauce.
Thinking you have something specific behind your branding that people do
not see it is just…silly. But, capitalizing on the content that you have and running with it…is genius. Great Day Farms eggs or Tyson for instance
share recipes from followers and interact with chefs and home cooks who use their products. Who create things from their products that they could never dream or develop. That’s so smart for content development. USE WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE.
I work at a church. I’m surrounded by women and men who are thought propelling think tanks as they come and go in the hallways, whiteboard sessions and in the lunch break room. The collective creativity and thoughts of those around me are unfathomable and to not capitalize and capture that every day would be silly.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is this….we all knew that
Budweiser would release a great commercial on Sunday night. We know that they understand that people
interact with people, not brands. We all know that they get that their product is connected to everyday living. We know it.
interact with people, not brands. We all know that they get that their product is connected to everyday living. We know it.
But, what is genius is that they know it. They have clarity of who they are, what they bring and what their customer expects. And, they deliver again and again.
Bravo! Kudos! Because for the next 4 days, we are all talking about the man, his dog, and his horses. I won’t be thinking about beer. I won’t be buying beer for Sunday night. But, I will be thinking about a great brand who did it well and taught us all a lesson on the run. This is a beautiful moment where a great risk (releasing a commercial early), brought
great reward (6,619,450 views and it hadn’t even been posted on YouTube 24 hours when I completed this!).
Genius.
Beautiful commercial and you are right – they made the right call to release it early.
Shelia
House of Highlands
So right on!
Love that commercial. I teared up when I saw it on Facebook a few days before the Super Bowl and again during the game.