Bud.tv, that undead “entertainment” channel that tried to lure you in with attractive women, chimps, and Chris Farley’s brother will be back, but edgier. And you know it’s bad when the Wall Street Journal article reporting it uses the word “edgy,” in some form, more than once.
Word that Bud.tv will retrench and reformulate comes a mere week after Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV said Bud.tv might “fade away.”
How, you might be asking yourself, will the company that brought me three belching frogs and “Wassup!!” get “edgier?” How will an established marketing behemoth lumber onto the information super highway? Why, they’ll listen to their 21- to 26-year-old employees, of course! Internal focus groups at Anheuser-Busch have had the young adults in to “brainstorm” with execs. “It’s clear to us that the consumer wants more interaction, more conversion and more of a social community,” Tony Ponturo, A-B vice president, global media and sports marketing, told the Journal.
Best case scenario, I see the ad campaign taking on an [Adult Swim] feel and starts using indie bands in their advertising while Bud supplants PBR as the hipster beer of choice (sorry, Jed).
The redesign will include the ever popular flavors of social networking and video. But who are you going to socialize with on a beer WEBSITE! SERIOUSLY!? Why doesn’t Anheuser-Busch cut their losses and get some Silicone Valley 21- to 26-year-olds to make a Facebook application for Bud.tv. I mean, that’s what Red Bull has done anyway.
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