Coors Light at Avenue A | Razorfish's Rock the Digital World summit
At this morning’s Rock the Digital World summit, hosted by Avenue A | Razorfish and its clients, I got a chance to see what Coors Brewing Company is up to in its marketing efforts. CMO Andy England gave a presentation spelling out how the brand has evolved over the past few years and made some observations as to how TV and digital advertising is changing.One interesting point England made was that with one exception, there is no “appointment TV” anymore, meaning with the onslaught of DVRs, there are very few occasions to reschedule personal plans to be sure to catch a program live. The one exception, namely with Coors’s young male target demographic, is live sports. Therefore, the value of those time slots goes up for advertisers.
Coors has numerous campaigns running simultaneously including cable, banner, TV, social networking and viral video. They even have a female-targeted online campaign boasting that Coors Light has only 102 calories. Coors is also the official beer of the NFL and NASCAR.
The viral video on YouTube, which featured a 20-something man pouring the perfect glass of beer from unlikely heights can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQD8Lk3ies. England noted that it had nearly 200,000 hits. A “response” video posted by a Coors Light fan has garnered over 63,000 hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jfwnFRQfjE&feature=related.
He also went on to say that you shouldn’t assume that your offline work doesn’t lead to online activity. Coors created numerous television ads integrating old footage of pro football coaches during press conferences spliced to look as if they’re answering questions about the beer. The most popular was with Jim Mora, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts which has received 495,000 hits on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUr5hF0yGc. Amazingly, a college student’s response video using Mike Gundy, coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, has gotten 528,000 hits, far surpassing Coors’s own advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTQUWEKx0o&feature=related.
England ended by saying that Draftfcb currently does Coors’s offline marketing, but wonders if an evolution toward “one-stop shop” agencies is coming soon.
