A new Budweiser online ad targeting young adults pays tribute to the person who gets everyone home safe and sound at the end of the night. It features a real designated driver who is surprised with a show of appreciation.
The spot, developed by Anomaly, shows a guerilla marketing team luring a designated driver out to their bar-side setup in which they dramatize the way he saves lives by driving sober.
Andrew Oosterhuis, Budweiser’s brand manager for Labatt Breweries (which owns the brand in Canada), wanted this spot to be different from past safe driving ads. “Traditional ads about designated drivers are usually negative, about consequences,” Oosterhuis said. “But we really looked at this in a positive, celebratory light.”
The video is distributed through a digital-only buy and appears on sites like YouTube and Facebook. It connects people with the #thankabud Twitter hash tag, giving everyone the chance to show their appreciation for designated drivers.
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Research conducted by Ipsos Reid and sponsored by Budweiser found that the attitude surrounding designated drivers has changed over the past generation. Among the 1,318 survey participants aged 19 to 34, 78% have volunteered to be designated driver in the past three years.
“It’s becoming an accepted norm,” said Oosterhuis. “Celebrating and recognizing the designated driver is the point. They feel a sense of pride, they see its volunteer aspect. Even though eight in 10 have been DD, they don’t think it’s celebrated.”
Oosterhuis said the timing of the ad’s launch is especially important with the upcoming long weekend (Aug. 5 is a civic holiday in all provinces except Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador).
