To really create buzz in a contest promotion, it helps to give consumers a taste of what they can win. Budweiser did just that in its Bud Loft promotion created by Montreal-based PALM Publicité.
The Bud Loft promotion ran from June to July 2003 and gave consumers a virtual taste of the ‘rock star’ life they could experience if they won a weekend at the actual Bud Loft. The effort recently took the Complete Campaign award at the Boomerang Gala, Quebec’s interactive marketing competition.
The goal
To raise awareness for the Budweiser brand and maintain a strong presence – particularly with the target of males 18 to 29 – during the key summer period in Quebec.
The strategy
To create a unique property that reinforces Bud’s 10 year-old rock ‘n’ roll positioning in Quebec by giving consumers the rock star treatment.
Tapping into the reality show trend (namely Quebec’s popular Loft Story), and Bud’s ‘Coulés dans le rock’ tagline, the Bud Loft – which is both a virtual loft and an actual rock ‘n’ roll party house – is the tool through which consumers can express their rock-on attitude by living the Budweiser experience.
The execution
The promotion gave consumers a chance to win one of three weekends at the real Bud Loft, which would include an open bar party for 30 people, a rock concert, personal assistant and bodyguard.
Consumers could enter the contest by playing an interactive game in the virtual loft at Budweiser.ca. Players enter the e-loft – an animated, stylized party house environment featuring characters that play pool, dance and watch TV – and search for seven hidden digits which complete a cell phone number.
Meanwhile, consumers could also win instantly in some bars as well as via in-case.
To promote the contest, an e-mail campaign was executed to drive customers to the Web site. Print and Web banner ads – featuring floating house keys and rental notices, with the tagline ‘Loft à gagner’ – were placed on major Quebec entertainment portals such as Canoe and Sympatico, and appeared in the rental listings of La Presse.
TV spots were also executed, while 50 bars across Quebec promoted the contest through neck danglers and staff clothing in conjunction with a staff motivation program. Finally, radio station MIX 96 broadcast a live morning show from the Bud Loft.
The results
The Budweiser.ca Web site experienced heavy traffic during the promotion, with 382,419 visits, and 61,819 unique visitors. Meanwhile, a total of 13,589 e-mails were sent out to Budweiser’s database. Eighty-three per cent of recipients opened the e-mail, 70% clicked on the hyperlink to visit the promotional Web site and 30% entered the contest. The Web banners achieved a total of over 2.4 million impressions.
Frédérique Delagrave, supervisor of brand integration and strategy at PALM, credits the success of the campaign to its integration as well as to the uniqueness of the promotion.
‘Each year, we have a summer promotion with Budweiser, since the summer is a key period. Usually, the promotion is the same. But this one was really special and stood out in the marketplace. It had a lot to do with image, and the rock positioning of the brand.’
