Labatt has launched its third-annual ‘Bud Camp’ campaign to promote its Budweiser brand. The massive bilingual push features radio spots, TV, online, OOH, experiential, in-store and retail marketing as well as a Facebook campaign, and draws attention to Bud Camp, a wilderness getaway for 250 lucky winners at a secret location.
Toronto-based Grip developed the creative for the English-language campaign, while Montreal-based Brad worked on its French-language counterpart. M2 Universal helmed the media buys in English Canada, and Marketel handled the buys for French Canada. Mosaic is taking on all of the experiential marketing, while Edelman is handling the PR. All of the agencies have worked on ‘Bud Camp’ since its inception in 2007.
The campaign, which targets the 19-to-24 demo, aims to drive the target to contest entry through various avenues, like entering a PIN code found in specially-marked cases of Budweiser at Budcamp.ca, a Facebook photo contest or Bud Camp games at bars across the country.
The Facebook photo contest invites users to upload wilderness-themed photos with a caption at Facebook.com/BudweiserCanada. ‘The Facebook campaign borrows from our equity platform,’ says Ben Seaton, associate marketing manager for Budweiser, ‘which is all about the rules that guys live by. So the concept is to have consumers upload a photo related to the theme and have them attach a great rule to it.’ Users can then vote on the best picture on the Facebook page, which has over 60,000 fans.
Consumers can also win a trip to Bud Camp by participating in games at Budweiser-sponsored events which will take place at 108 bars across Canada throughout July. The camp-themed games will be hosted by three female Bud Camp team leaders and one male emcee and will feature sampling and prizes. ‘We do a lot of media that helps to push consumers to those events as well, such as expandable leaderboards that allow you to choose which city you live in to see executions that are close to you,’ says Seaton.
Another way for people to win a trip to Bud Camp is through Budweiser’s co-promotions with various media outlets, including MuchMusic and radio stations CFOX in Vancouver and Edmonton’s The Bear.
A large radio buy in Ontario centres around stations that target the 19-to-24 demographic, such as Toronto’s The Edge. Online advertising will be featured on over 24 French- and English-language sites, including Spinner.ca, AOL.ca and TSN.ca. The TV spots – a 15-second English spot and a 30-second French spot – use tweaked and updated creative from past years and feature the brand’s iconic vintage tour bus and the caption ‘Rule #32: Live the Dream.’ The ads will air on a variety of stations, including CTV and TSN, during such young adult-targeted programming as The Simpsons. ‘The goal is to reach our youngadult consumers on a number of different platforms,’ says Seaton.
The campaign also features a large OOH element including classic billboards, digital screens and wall and mirror decals on over 850 NewAd and Zoom Media spots across the country. Notable examples are wall decals that feature directions to Bud Camp and Bud Camp t-shirt decals.
The campaign runs through August. The actual Bud Camp event takes place on August 21-23.
