Bud Light adopted the infomercial formula for their latest campaign: Tailgate Approved.  The campaign premise is selling many obscure, fun tailgating gear that is “Tailgate Approved” Bud Light.  Available gear includes items like the Foozie (a foam finger beer coozie combo), a Speaker Box (a ipod enabled Bud Light beer case), and the Grooler (a combination grill and cooler).  The  kicker is these items aren’t just part of the campaign, but als0 available for purchase.  For example, the Foozie is $9.99 and the Grooler is $125 (note at the time of this post the Grooler was sold out, but was available on eBay in some cases priced over $200).

The web site also includes links to a facebook presence, commercials, a fantasy football namerator, and a fun grill game where user actually grill burgers and serve beer. 

Bud Light’s integration into tailgating is well done.  The integrated media campaign uses traditional media to hook into online and POS experiences.  The fact people can buy the Tailgate Approved products brings a novelty and word-of-mouth aspect to the campaign.  The fact they are sold out of the Grooler also tells you the campaign is working, especially with a 75% mark-up on eBay.

In a recent blog (It’s National Tailgate Week), I discussed an opportunity Kingsford had to own tailgating.  Kingsford leveraged an integrated media a opportunity on ESPN to create tailgate week, but that is where it ended.  Through the ESPN Sponsorship there was a lot of media rhetoric honoring the week, but not a lot of substance for people to get involved.  There was no incentive to  bring the campaign home, or better yet to the stadium parking lot.  In contrast Bud Light uses their branded products to become relevant to tailgators. 

Looking to the future, I wonder if this is a one-time campaign, or something they can build into a bigger idea — owning tailgating over an extended period of time.  I like the batch of products this year, and would be fun to increase the Tailgate Approved items in upcoming years.  Better yet, get tailgators involved to submit their own ideas for Tailgate Approved equipment.

On the surface it sounds great: great sales, less advertising. The economic-sensitive advertising premise for Miller is also intriguing –

“Miller announced plans to air the ads — and placed a bunch of them online — on Jan. 20.  The spots’ inherent critique of spending so lavishly on advertising in a recession — “Paying $3 million for a 30-second commercial makes as much sense as putting sauerkraut on a donut,” a promotional website said — drew national notice, including coverage in USA Today and other major media outlets.”

You can just hear the marketing/advertising banter around the nation: “We don’t need to spend $3 million. We just need a breakthrough one-second idea. So, let’s go around the table …” Don’t Blink. It reminds me of the DVR-killer commercial for KFC Snackers.

Hmm, could Miller’s one-second commercial be generated from the KFC idea? Although a one-second commercial may be the perfect ad unit for the A.D.D. generation, it probably is also a one-hit wonder, having very little to do with sales. The Ad Age article states Miller sales were up 5% a week prior to the Super Bowl.

If we take a step back from the one-second buzz, we may realize Miller may be just benefiting from the current economic conditions (experience the “High Life” in the down turn). On a side note, at the time I wrote this blog the Miller sites were down (MillerBrewing.com, MillerLite.com, MillerBeer.com). The Miller Site served a “HTTP Status 404 – /av.action” error. Nice! Wait a second, maybe the site was a one-second subliminal experience and I missed it. Makes as much sense as sauerkraut on a donut…and don’t forget the beer.