Campaign of the Week: Budweiser Enlists Adam Driver to Reward Military Family

A new video campaign from Budweiser aims to highlight the company’s commitment to supporting military veterans and their families just in time for the Fourth of July. For this campaign, Budweiser enlists the help of actor Adam Driver, who is a veteran himself, and also partners with charitable organization Folds of Honor. The video features Driver visiting a military family and awarding a scholarship to a daughter who has had to work very hard to afford school due to her father’s injuries from military service. So what do consumers think of this type of campaign? We asked 1,000 about their thoughts on the Budweiser brand and then tested the video to see if it made any impact.

Beer Consumers

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest online survey, 16% of respondents said that they purchase beer at least a few times per week. 21% purchase beer a few times per month. 10% do so a few times every three months. 12% said they buy beer less frequently than once every three months. And 41% are not beer consumers at all.

Of those who purchase beer at least on occasion, 69% said they have tried Budweiser. And 31% purchase Budweiser regularly, making it the most popular beer brand of those listed. Additionally, 57% said they’ve seen commercials or video advertisements for beer within the past week.

Budweiser Video

Overall, 19% of respondents said they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Budweiser for their next beer purchase. And 18% said that it would be very probable. Of those who viewed the Budweiser video featuring Adam Driver, 21% said they would be certain or practically certain about choosing Budweiser for their next beer purchase. And another 21% said it would be very probable. In addition, 44% of those who viewed the video said that they recognized the actor featured. And of those respondents, 22% said they would be practically certain about choosing Budweiser for their next beer purchase. And just 16% said that it would be very probable.

Brand Attributes

American was the most popular word that beer consumers seemed to associate with the Budweiser brand. Others also included words like taste, classic, great, cheap and quality. Those who viewed the latest Budweiser video were a bit more likely to use the word American to describe the Budweiser brand. But they also used words like caring, family and community.

Key Takeaways

The latest Budweiser video campaign does seem to have the potential to make a positive impact both on people’s opinions of the brand and on people’s buying habits. The company has a long record of patriotic campaigns, so this is just one out of a long line of ads and videos that uphold that image. But the caring and charitable aspect does seem to make a difference for some consumers, since this campaign had a bigger impact on beer consumers than some past patriotic branding campaigns from Budweiser. In addition, the celebrity angle in the video seems to have worked more because of Adam Driver’s military service than his celebrity, since those who recognized him before the ad weren’t any more likely to support the brand than others who viewed the video.

Photo Credit: The Budweiser Sign by Joy under CC BY 2.0

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