Discount Advertising Leads to Large Impact

It is common knowledge that commercials that air during the super bowl are the most expensive commercials on television. This year the super bowl was the most viewed super bowl of all time. There were many entertaining commercials, but the commercial that has arguably received the most attention was a beer commercial http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/old-milwaukees-end-run-around-super-bowl-advertising-02092012.html. But, it is not from the usual suspects like Budweiser and Coors. This commercial is an advertisement for the Old Milwaukee brewing company http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tejGMPAShdY.

Old Milwaukee was a large company many years ago, but has come upon hardships in the recent decades. A part of their rebirth strategy has been an advertising merger with Will Ferrell's production company, Funny or Die. This particular commercial was of Ferrell walking through a field and catching a can of beer and pening it, than the commercially abruptly ends. This seems like a pretty normal commercial, except for the fact that it was only played in one small town of northern Nebraska. The commercial aired in North Platte, Nebraska and cost a total of $1,500 to air the 30 second commercial. National commercials for the same amount of time cost around $3,000,000.

The company claims that it was trying to "pay homage to great Old Milwaukee towns". This commercial however has received more discussion than any other ad that was played during the super bowl. Immediately after the commercial was played, someone released it on the internet and it immediately became a viral video sensation. The ad has been viewed 760,000 times on youtube, where Budweiser's top super bowl commercial was only viewed 320,000 times.

This advertising strategy is brilliant because Old Milwaukee has received twice the publicity online, and spent less than 1% of what their competitors paid. This is the ultimate cost effective marketing strategy possible. But, there was no guarantee this particular video would become popular. This is a very original marketing strategy, and really gives hope for capitalism that this low budget company can compete with the big players in their market.

I end this blog entry with this question, can effective advertising grow even if it is done on a budget?