Episode 49 - AB InBev Ad Reviewed by Betfair, Brandwatch and Pernod Ricard
This week for Advertisers Watching Ads, our partners Contagious have chosen the latest AB InBev ad featuring the Brahma Beer Bet. For all those of us who’ve bet a beer on the outcome of a football match, or those who might begin to do so now that there’s an app for it… is this actually an ad or is it a case study of the brand’s campaign in Brazil?
Does it do enough to convert a new audience to ordering beer online and do the numbers actually stack up? Does it make betting look too simple or is it just hitting the right note when it comes to making it look easy and fun?
Our guests this week are Alex Taborda from Betfair, Vic Miller from Brandwatch and Giancarlo Martins from Pernod Ricard. Watch the full video to see what they thought about the ad.
Transcription of audio file
This automated transcription gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:08
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. And we are brought to you as ever, sort of, for the time being, hopefully forever by Contagious, so please go and check those guys out after the show. They have chosen the ad this week. So, thanks for that guys. So, let's meet this week's guests.
Alex Taborda 0:35
Hi, I'm Alex. I'm a Media and Campaign Manager at Betfair.
Vic Miller 0:38
Hi, I'm Vic Miller, and I'm VP of Comms at Brandwatch.
Giancarlo Martins 0:41
Hi, I'm Giancarlo Martins. Comms Lead for Kahlúa at Pernod Ricard.
Tom Ollerton 0:45
Thanks so much for joining us, guys. Let's see this week's ad... Or is it an ad? Or is it a company video? Who knows?
Unknown Speaker 0:53
Hey there football fan. Surely this has already happened to you. You bet beer with a friend. You seal the deal. Your team wins that you end up empty handed? Well at AB InBev. We understand your pain because when you don't get paid, we don't sell fears. So to end the odds of a default we've launched Brahma bear bet. Through an innovative use of e commerce we condition the purchase and delivery of Brahma beers according to the match results. It's this simple. The football fan chooses a match the winning team and challenges a friend. Just after the match is over, the beers build on to the losers card and delivered into the winners house. Yeah, cold beer to celebrate the victory in less than 30 minutes. The service became the sports headline of the biggest Brazilian newspapers and also took over the social media as famous fans began to challenge each other we will have room here called people who can't come. While someone and some loss, our delivery service reached the milestone of a million users consolidating the best quarter ever in litres of beer delivered. But more than selling beers Brahma beer bet became a continuous entertainment platform that puts the brand in the center of fans conversation match after match. Yeah, betting beer can be really fun for the fans. It seems like a good deal for us. Right?
Tom Ollerton 2:32
Right, Vic. That seems like undisputable case study that is just a rip-roaring success on every single level. A win-win, profits going up, millions and millions of cans of beer bet and won? Or do you think there's some dark mysterious truth lurking behind the headlines?
Vic Miller 2:50
There's lots to like about this. Lots to like, and I would... If I was judging awards, I'd be like, "Oh, this is a good campaign." Definitely take interest. I also think it's quite genius and how it's spoken to sort of the current climate. Friends aren't necessarily allowed to be together, but they still want to engage on sports event. So, I really like... I feel like they've gauge their audience and the timing well.
Giancarlo Martins 3:09
You know, to me, I think... It would be much more interesting if they say, "Okay, now we partner with, you know, a betting house, and now we are extending the services or we're trying to bring people together." Whatever it is, you know. So, I think there is, there is much more to it. I would have some questions on the detail. You know, Brazil is a very large place and 1 million deliveries, it's probably not that much. But yeah, but I think it's well executed. It's, it's very much speaking to the heart of of consumers, you know, specifically in Brazil.
Alex Taborda 3:47
My initial reaction was really smart idea, like quite clever use of quite simple tech, really. I'm bit of a natural skeptic, so that the numbers didn't really stack up to me. So, they were, they were really specific about the metric that was like, that it was like the most litres of beer they've ever delivered in a quarter or something like 3.2 million litres of beer. So for me that kind of made me think, "What's the unit sold? What's the revenue like? What's the reason for people to really engage with this beyond it being a short lived thing? Is it a discounted through the app and therefore, that kind of gives a bit more of an incentive for people to keep going? On face value, really fun, really creative. I do question the numbers behind it and how much they actually delivered for the business.
Giancarlo Martins 4:30
I mean, just put in context, say São Paulo alone has like 26 million inhabitants. So, I mean, yeah, interesting but you know, how much it actually adds it to the bottom line?
Tom Ollerton 4:41
And so if you work for an insights platform, do you think that this was based on a genuine consumer insight? There's that moment where the fridge door gets opened, and the guys like, "Oh, where's the beer that I've won?" Do you think that is something that would have shown up in social to be like, "God damn my mates whenever I win a bet they never actually follow through. Or do you think that's like an agency thing where they've sort of made up an insight?
Vic Miller 5:07
I don't think they've made up an insight here. I think it's grounded on a good concept of the consumers and where they're at in their lives. You know, they can't get into, get into big stadiums and do the usual. So, I feel like it's grounded on good consumer understanding and understanding sort of the behaviors involved. But the agency have added this kind of slightly uncomfortable... Where it's crazy fun layer to it, which I get, because that's what you know, they're meant to do as an agency. So, I don't think they've missed the mark on understanding their consumers.
And Alex, do you think that they should have mirrored some of the innovation and complexity within the gambling world? It's not just as simple as saying win or lose on a team these days? Do you think that they could have made it a lot more geeky, a lot more detail orientated? Where bets could have been more simple than like, my team will beat your team? Or have that been a step too far?
Alex Taborda 5:57
I think if you're going to add in some of the complexities of the betting industry, probably, you probably lose people a bit further. I think, I think the, the idea is simple enough. It's just, I personally wouldn't have added anything additional to it. I think that might be an additional barrier to entry personally.
Tom Ollerton 6:13
Vic, if this idea had landed on your table, what would have been your creative builds on this?
Vic Miller 6:19
What's the point mid to long term? Would have been my big one. I'd be really interested to know what they were trying to change in terms of consumer behavior, or purchase intent, or were they looking for people to be ordering alcohol directly or with a, what's the long term use of the app? I need it to live a bit longer if we're going to be investing in a piece of tech and app and what does that look like? I would want it to build out a lot more.
Tom Ollerton 6:40
To that point, Gian, is this a clever way of converting an audience that wouldn't normally order beer online. Like you gotta download an app, then you've got to play a game with your mate and, and, "Oh, look how easy it is to order beer to my house." I'm making a ton of assumptions there. But could that be what this is trying to do? Is that kind of Trojan Horse to get an app on people's phone to steer them away from other beer delivery services where the margin will be less?
Giancarlo Martins 7:05
I don't know. I think they try and sort of find some brand saliency here in a highly competitive market. To Vic's point, actually, what is the sort of long term goal here? You know, how, what's the point of differentiation? You know, how, how you're really building on the brand saliency in the long run. I don't know if they will be able to sort of continue showing, sitting chair from all the beer brands in the markets, you know, in the mid to long term.
Tom Ollerton 7:31
So Alex, what do you think the industry should be learning from this concept?
Alex Taborda 7:35
It came from a quite a good consumer insight. And it was, you know, kind of keeping an eye out for those kinds of trends and how you can be a bit more innovative with how you can get people to engage with their friends if they can't be kind of nearby. So I think there's elements around that engineer turning insight into into action. Really simple technology, but it can be used to deliver quite clever activation. So, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, a mind bending use of something completely new, it can be coming, it's really, really simple and easy to do. But actually, it does lead to something that's quite clever.
Giancarlo Martins 8:03
I think the whole commercialization aspect of the campaign was really nicely done, despite us questioning the actual nitty gritty in the numbers. And we, as an industry, we really want to get closer to consumer. We want to be able to look at those conversion numbers. So I think, the more we, we strive for that, the better it is. And the more consumers get used to the notion that they can have the sort of services and buying drinks or whether it's beer or cocktails, or service, whatever that might be, I think, the better it is for the industry, so definitely taking that on.
Vic Miller 8:42
I think I should learn to be more comfortable with things not having mid to long term value. Actually, I think what we can learn as an industry is that it's okay to do things that are more short term, but reactive to really sort of strange situations that none of us had anticipated. So I think they've done really well to do something creative. And, you know, in response to how's anyone respond to this stuff. So I actually think they've done I think we can learn that it's okay sometimes for things to be more short term.
Tom Ollerton 9:07
So, what I'm going to get you guys do now is to vote on how could you thought this execution was. I'm going to count to three and I want you hold your hands up with the number of points you would give it out of 5. One, two, three... A three, a three, and a two. There you have it. We would love to know what you think about this ad. So whether you're watching this on LinkedIn or YouTube or Twitter, please just put some comments below. But guys, thank you so much for joining us today. We will see you next week.
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