Anheuser-Busch is looking to build its business with a roster of strategies beyond buying TV time in sports events.
That was the message that Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch vice president of global media and sports marketing, delivered to an audience at the Association of National Advertisers’ TV & Everything Video Forum in New York yesterday.
Ponturo, who is also president and CEO of the Busch Media Group, said selling beer—not being the biggest media buyer—is still its primary objective.
And he made it clear that it’s a much different marketing landscape now, as Anheuser-Busch spends 59% of its media dollars on TV, compared to 20 years ago, when its TV time spending topped 70%.
“It’s not that easy today. There has to be more attention to segmentation,” Ponturo said.
These days the beer maker seeks to create connections to the 21-to-34-year-old audience by supplementing 30-second spots with digital connections. He noted that the Budweiser ad in this year’s Super Bowl—featuring a Dalmatian coaching a Clydesdale to the “Rocky” theme—reached 13 million consumers in its online afterlife.
Anheuser-Busch routinely shoots on-air and Internet versions of its ads these days, as in the case of the “Semi-Pro” spots it produced with the film’s star Will Ferrell, he said.
Big sports events, such as the Super Bowl and the upcoming Summer Olympics remain “great platforms” for sponsorship, according to Ponturo, notwithstanding diminished Olympics ratings in recent years.
“We see that as something that has value beyond 30-second spots,” he said.
He noted that sponsorship extensions in the form of on-field signage are “very key” to Anheuser-Busch’s promotional efforts.
“The playing space has become an integration space,” Ponturo said.
In the Super Bowl, he pointed out that Budweiser received a bonus during the Tom Petty halftime show with a large Bud logo that loomed in the background above the stage—the result of a regular NFL season sponsorship with the Arizona Cardinals. Bud was not the halftime sponsor.
Product placement in non-sports TV programming also is becoming a big element in the Anheuser-Busch playbook.
“We’re seeing the dialogue becoming more aggressive with television,” Ponturo said. “The key for us is how it’s used. If it’s forced, it’s not going to work at all.”
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