Episode 119 - Budweiser Whtspp Records Ad Reviewed by Henkel, Vodafone and Big Black Door
In this week’s Advertisers Watching Ads episode, our partners Contagious have chosen Budweiser’s WHTSPP Records ad from Latin America. This is an interesting project where wannabe artists can share their demos with established urban music stars, in the hopes of getting a collaboration that will boost their careers.
With a name that reminds us of the old Budweiser ads featuring the now iconic “Wassup” line, this initiative is definitely interesting and got the brand some traction, but is it unique enough to them? Could someone else have done this? And what are the biggest benefits for Budweiser from this campaign?
Watch the episode and hear from our guests Nikki Vadera (Marketing & Digital (Consumer Brands) Director at Henkel), Sara Belardi (Senior Brand Manager for VOXI at Vodafone) and Gareth Turner (Founder of Big Black Door), who only gave this ad a 3 out of 5!
Episode 119 - Budweiser Whtspp Records Ad Reviewed by Henkel, Vodafone and Big Black Door
Transcript - It’s not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands review other brands' ads.
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and I'd like to thank our beautiful partners, Contagious, for finding the ad this week. But before we see the ad this week, let's meet this week's guests.
Nikki Vadera 0:25
Hi, I'm Nikki Vadera. I'm Marketing and Consumer Brands Digital Director at Henkel.
Sara Belardi 0:25
Hi, I'm Sara Belardi. I'm Senior Brand Manager on VOXI, which is Vodafone's UK Gen Z brand, hi.
Gareth Turner 0:37
And I'm Gareth Turner. I'm the founder of a marketing consultancy called Big Black Door.
Tom Ollerton 0:42
What a panel! And all ex-guests so I have the highest expectation of your critique this week. This week's ad is by Budweiser in Latin America. They released something called WHTSPP Records where you can share your tracks with famous artists and get them to give you a boost. Was it real? Was it amazing? Let's find out.
What we always do is give the concept, not the video itself, a mark out of five. So one, two, three... A three, a three and a three. How interesting! I wasn't expecting that. So Nikki, it's fairly self-explanatory video, but can you give us a sense of what went on outside of this campaign to make it work?
Nikki Vadera 3:36
Sure, so essentially, Budweiser become quite famous for their platform of "Wazzap," which was a, a previous advert where they had two frogs talking to each other using that slogan. They then use that equity that they've built up in that slogan and created WHTSPP Records giving consumers the ability to directly connect with music superstars or producers and therefore getting their voice heard and being discovered as the next big thing.
Gareth Turner 4:00
I don't think the idea is a new one. Send us your stuff. And we'll get someone famous to look at it. But it's been beautifully done. Generally speaking, consumers are lazy. And often your entry levels are pretty low but it looks like they got some great traction on this. I think it shows how they tapped into something that's meaningful for that audience. The biggest couple of problems I've got with it is the quality of the music. Not the composing, but it sounds so tinny on a phone. It was well branded enough, but could someone else have done this? Is it? Is it truly ownable by Budweiser? I think the, sort of branding rappers they put on it, perhaps are. But I don't know how well associated Bud are with music in the US, for example, I think they're more involved in sports. So it felt like that was a departure from what I've seen of Budweiser. But I don't know what the market is, what their associations are in that market.
Sara Belardi 4:41
I didn't know that they had a connection with music. I knew that they had connection with a lot of things. That thing of the passion point of the music besides the tradition, together with how their target audience actually use WhatsApp to communicate, that's pretty smart, because really everyone sends voice messaging. And obviously the quality of the music to your point, Gareth, is not very good.
Nikki Vadera 5:02
They also made the barrier to entry low. They didn't make you go and download an app. They use the platform everyone's familiar with. As an individual, you know that your music can get heard by someone so influential... That for me is what made this actually a success. And maybe Budweiser have been more famous previously for sponsoring sports events. But you know, there are festivals, music festivals, things like that. It's also adjusting who they're trying to tap into as, maybe new consumers, maybe younger consumers that do go to music festivals, or concerts.
Gareth Turner 5:33
The American Dream is an important part of the brand positioning. But what I liked about this as well is that it moves the American Dream on beyond in whatever country you're in, right? But this idea that you can make something of yourself. I love the fact they've moved that on beyond the red, white and blue, and the sort of old fashioned cowboy type Americana, but actually made that relevant for a modern audience about how you can make something of yourself in a different way. So moving, moving it on, not off. I think I quite like that better than the, the "WHTSPP" campaign.
Sara Belardi 6:02
One thing that I thought was interesting is that, for example, on their Instagram, they, they didn't really tag the artists that they work with. Although they do have presence on social. So that also results in an over all engagement rate, and the social which looks a little bit low. I would've expected much higher numbers for your campaign that had obviously out of home, very good PR, hopefully decent enough word of mouth. That's definitely if we talk about something that I would have done differently, I would have tried to build more on this partnership with the artists while it didn't feel like they were engaged besides those cool and polished videos that they recorded.
Nikki Vadera 6:41
We need to go back to we don't know what the objective of this campaign was. Even if it was brand love, we're saying, "Okay, we don't think their reach and engagement has been strong enough." For all we know, this could have been a pilot to assess... Is this the right way for us to go forward? Is this a good channel to tap into a younger audience? For example.
Sara Belardi 7:01
I guess maybe that's another thing that I didn't fully understand in terms of how... Yeah, it was that a pilot? Was that a... Let's give it a try to build that, build up for the summer. I saw that they had some videos about some festivals that they organized, maybe? Who knows? It's where these artists, these emerging artists could play. But we don't have any evidence of that.
Tom Ollerton 7:23
If you were behind this, how would you have taken it further?
Nikki Vadera 7:25
To make this a real movement, it needed to be done in a little bit more of a considered way. So like you said, if you partner with a record label, so let's take, I know in the UK, if you partner with Syco, which is kind of famous for being Simon Cowell's record label, and you did that partnership that way, and it was once a year, you get to enter this competition, and it didn't feel exclusive enough, almost. It felt like a free-for-all. Maybe what I would have done next was then narrow down everything, you know, to the top 50 entries or top 20 entries, then get the public involved to vote for it. Do some sort of live venue where people can come and perform. You can enter to then go watch people perform. That for me is how you then spread the reach. You get more people engaging, who may not be interested in becoming the next big star, but interested in joining that person on the journey. What are the personal stories of these top 20 people that have made it through to the next round? And that way, you get a lot more scalability and a lot more engagement from not just your core audience, but then even fans who might not be considering Budweiser, they get to know it as you know, Budweiser Star of the Year, or something like that. Give it a little bit more reason to engage with it beyond just the music industry and wannabe producers or wannabe famous singers.
Tom Ollerton 8:39
What will you be advising your clients on based on what you've seen and learned here, good or bad?
Gareth Turner 8:45
I like the way that they've used existing platforms. I like the way that they've made it relatively straightforward to enter. And they've got some great PR coverage. I mean that that's all good stuff. I think you could almost put any beer brand in there. I'm not sure it's got great cut through so that'd be a watch out.
Tom Ollerton 9:02
Would you sign off this ad in its current form? Or would you ask for revisions? Thumbs up or thumbs down? You would sign off?
Sara Belardi 9:18
Yeah. If it's not about the results, if it's just about the creative per se, I think it's pretty good. Then obviously if you look at the context, there are questions but the ad per se I think is good.
Tom Ollerton 9:27
So Nikki, Sara, Gareth, thank you so much for your time.
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