What's being "sold" here?
By Dave Ramacitti
In marketing, the Holy Grail is to make a powerful emotional connection with your target audience. Think Harley-Davidson riders, Mac users and Hallmark card senders here…
Budweiser, or more specifically Anheuser Busch, Bud's parent company, recently released a Veterans Day ad that I guarantee will bring a tear to the eye of anyone except the most jaded:
Veterans' Day ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AGay3mZHeE
It is, of course, a direct descendant of the famous Budweiser ad that ran a few weeks after 9/11:
9/11 ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d17gXJp5v8
As one would expect from Budweiser, both of these ads have outstanding production values --- they are really quite beautifully done. Interestingly, I use the 9/11 ad in two seemingly diverse classes I teach:
- In a film studies (humanities) class I use it as an example of how you can tell an emotionally compelling story in a very short time space (you don't need 2 hours).
- In a marketing class I use it both as an example of: A) How potent the Clydesdale's have become as a brand icon for Budweiser; and B), how an ad can be effective without any direct sales pitch.
And that is, of course, the key question: What's being "sold" here?
An obvious answer is patriotism. A cynical answer is the Budweiser brand. An even more disparaging answer is, at least indirectly, beer.
However, it is not my purpose to get into an ethical debate about Anheuser Busch's real motives for the ads. Let's just acknowledge that from an advertising / marketing perspective they are well done and clearly effective --- if it made the viewer smile, and, even more likely cry, it was definitely effective.
Rather, since the focus of my coaching and writing is small business marketing, I'd like to recast the question like this: What can the small business marketer learn from the Budweiser example?
Could, or perhaps more cogently, should a small business advertiser try the same approach?
Let's say the local high school football team wins a state championship --- or just even comes in as runners-up. Might a local advertiser build an ad around scenes from the cheering crowds welcoming home their local heroes' team bus --- lots of enthusiastic waving, lots of big smiles, lots of hugs, lots of "We're proud of you" signs being waved --- perhaps ending the ad with just a brief two or three second glimpse of the sponsor's logo?
What's being "sold" here?
The obvious answer is, of course, community pride. But aren't the sponsor's brand and perhaps indirectly the sponsor's products also being sold?
I've been reading Rob Walker's excellent 2008 book "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are." In the book Walker coins the term "murketing," which he says is indicative of how the line between traditional marketing and the consumer is becoming ever more "murky" or indistinct. Indeed, Walker's central argument is that consumers are not becoming more cynical about or immune to "marketing," as some pundits have claimed, but rather are becoming even more willing participants in the marketing process itself.
Although Walker didn't use the Budweiser 9/11 ad as an example, I have no doubt he would agree that if that ad, as well as the newer Veterans' Day ad, brings tear to our eye, perhaps causes a swell of pride in our breast, then we, as consumers, have indeed willingly participated along with the ad sponsor in the marketing process.
And that as far as we consumers are concerned, what exactly is being "sold" in these ads really doesn't make any difference.
As a marketing coach, would I advise the small, local business to go with the "hail to the returning football heroes" ad? Absolutely!
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