Analysis by Taylor Mickelberry in KIN 501
In 2015, the third advertisement in a loosely connected plotline by Anheuser-Busch (A-B) featuring its famed Clydesdales and a little puppy will air during the Super Bowl. While the puppy didn’t appear in the first edition of the sequence featuring
A-B’s Budweiser brand, he will certainly be the focal point of this year’s ad named “Lost Dog” (Griner, 2015; McMains, 2015)
In the 2013 version and what is considered the first of this plotline, titled “Brotherhood”, a trainer raises up a tiny Clydesdale to become one of the main attractions of the Bud brand. When the trainer returns to see the Clydesdales in Chicago and sees his horse leading the pack, he holds on to some glimmer of hope that the horse will recognize him. When he realizes he is foolish to think so, he returns to his truck, only to find his horse running down a Chicago street to reunite with him in the emotional payoff viewers expected.
In 2014, we find the same trainer (yes, he’s back! And he’ll offer some of the best analysis that could be found later on!), still raising Clydesdales, but this time he’s living near a puppy farm; And one of those pesky puppies keeps getting out to hang out with his friend, a Clydesdale in a stall. Finally, the puppy is getting adopted, but he’s not happy about this. The Clydesdale gang helps to stop the adoption and walks the puppy back to his friend in the epitome of the title of the ad: “Puppy Love.”
Those ads both won the top spot in the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter and “Puppy Love” won an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Commercial (Horovitz, 2014).
And so, that leaves 2015 as the perfect conclusion to the trilogy of stories here (unless A-B goes all Star Wars on this plotline). This year, A-B has put out a few GIF’s and photos and told us the name of the ad early, “Lost Dog,” unlike last year when our little puppy friend stole America’s heart early, garnering 23 million YouTube views by the Friday before the spot actually aired (Judkis, 2014). The GIF’s show the trainer, played by actor Don Jeanes, tacking up a missing dog poster and struggling with a unruly Clydesdale while simultaneously we see photos of a dirty and scared Labrador pup (presumably the one from last year) running around town.
But did they sell beer?
Odds are, they didn’t.
In fact, A-B is trying to bring back the Budweiser brand, which fell to the third-best selling beer since 2001 and has been declining in sales for almost 25 years, mainly thanks to the fact that the younger generations prefer Coors Light and Bud Light (another A-B product)(Brown, 2015).
But it was, nonetheless, a brilliant marketing campaign and still was successful in its secondary function: cementing Budweiser as an All-American company and reminding its consumers that it knows about life and love in America.
Mark Schaeffer sums it up for us in a 2013 St. Louis Times-Dispatch article by Lisa Brown.
"I don't think beer drinkers are going to buy more Budweiser next weekend because of it," Mark Schaeffer, president of the Clayton office of ad agency Hoffman Lewis, said of the Clydesdale spot [the 2013 “Brotherhood” ad]. "But a long-standing brand like Budweiser has to do an ad like that, that reminds customers of its heritage”(Brown, 2013).
So there’s that secondary function playing its role: A-B is reminding the public of the company’s image and that in and of itself can go much farther than selling a few 6-packs in the immediate days after the Super Bowl.
Basis for analysis on the emotions in these advertisements comes from Kelsey Libert and Kristin Tynski’s article from October 2013 in the Harvard Business Review titled “The Emotions that Make Marketing Campaigns Go Viral."
Libert and Tynski highlight multiple key elements in order to leave a lasting impression on consumers. The first they highlight is to leave branding to a minimum as to not come off as “salesy.” Next, they say to take viewers on an emotional roller coaster in order to keep the viewer interested and to ensure that the viewer is never bored. Finally, Libert and Tynski suggest a company should emotionally connect the marketing that you are doing to the position of your brand.
The Budweiser ads are able to do all of these things; The commonalities being that they never indicate they are Budweiser ads until the last few seconds; they usually have a happy feeling until somewhere between half and 75 percent of the way through, in which they jerk the viewer to somewhere not pretty; and finally Budweiser always positions themselves (via a logo or some other type of identification) alongside a happy ending in order to ensure customers that their company can be connected with the same emotions they just felt throughout their commercial.
Additional great analysis comes from Jeanes, the actor who plays the trainer-rancher in A-B’s ads. In a Forbes article from 2014 by Gay Gaddis, Jeanes says “No one wants to be sold to anymore. The American people voted [the Budweiser ad] as their favorite because it touched their emotions. Budweiser found that Super Bowl XLVIII was the perfect opportunity to entertain and meet people’s needs for that emotion (Gaddis, 2014).”
Marc Wayshak of Entrepreneur is able to further this though in his 2014 article as he says that these type of marketing campaigns are more memorable because of the emotion brought up. Wayshak continues by saying that A-B is trying to create an idea that connects more to the life of the consumer, rather than the product you offer.
Creating an emotional appeal, even one that does not heavily feature your brand could help enhance your brand anyway via the good feelings it leaves consumers. This is possible when consumers talk about your marketing campaign and therefore your company in good terms. A positive public image goes very far in selling products, even if the original consumer of that saw the ad doesn’t buy it. It could be his friend, his mother or his spouse that decides to purchase an item based on the positive vibes he felt while watching a marketing campaign.
The positivity behind a brand is such a powerful tool for companies to position themselves in the fast-paced world of tweets, YouTube, viral videos and other digital marketing that is all over the place these days. These emotions help the marketing campaign to stand out over all others.
This is a key topic for this class for two reasons. The first reason is that as sports professionals, we will have to work with these individuals and companies and the positive image could be reflected onto us if we enter into sponsorship agreements with them. Secondly, if we are marketing our own entities, we could use these skills to help forge an emotional connection within our own communities, which could help sell tickets or do whatever our entity’s mission statement is.
Emotional marketing is something that always seems to have successes, and it is no more highlighted than on Super Bowl Sunday, much like it will be this week.
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