Anheuser-Busch is taking its popular, decade-old Bud Bowl to the World Wide Web so it can reserve its high-priced Super Bowl media time to showcase new creative on Budweiser and Bud Light.
For the battle of the bottles, A-B will invite customers to a “cyberstadium” with 20 million seats and offer chances to win the ultimate electronic hookup. Game “tickets” containing section, row, and seat number will be available on packaging at on-premise events and at the new Web site, budbowl. com, that went live Nov. 1. The new site will be linked to budweiser.com and ESPN’s widely-viewed SportsZone site.
At Super Bowl halftime, online Bud Bowl fans will see a five-minute brawl of the bottles, with prize winners announced on the site and on the actual game broadcast. A Stanley Cup-sized “ultimate trophy” (actually a draft stanchion) will tour markets on-premise, eventually ending up in Miami two weeks before game time where it will be used in Drink from the Cup local events.
A-B signed merchandising partners to help generate store display activity, including Red Baron Pizza and Frito-Lay.
DDB Needham’s interactive unit in Chicago is doing the online promo along with St. Louis-based promo shop Louis London.
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