CAMPAIGNS

Chug a Beer, Get a Shot, Do a Keg Stand Too

Last month, Emory University marketing professor David Schweidel told us how a vaccine card promo (Krispy Kreme’s doughnuts-for-jabs offer) could hurt brand trust more than help it if much of your “customer base has political views against vaccination.”

Since then, however, some Very American Brands with large, diverse audiences (not to mention ad budgets) haven’t seemed worried about alienating anti-vaxxers: Budweiser and Sam Adams rolled out branded “vaccine awareness” content last week. Color us intrigued.

And it just might work: Data shop Gravy Analytics analyzed foot traffic in US Krispy Kreme stores, reporting a jump of 19.81% from February to March. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, it’s not hard to imagine folks rewarding themselves with a post-vaccine doughnut.

Data like that, plus wanting to participate in the Everyone Gets a Vaccine game show, could partially explain why these beer brands rolled out vaccine awareness promos last week—just in time for National Beer Day on April 7. 

Budweiser: The Ad Council-backed ad shows pre-Covid images of people drinking Budweiser slideshow-style as Jimmy Durante’s song “I’ll Be Seeing You” plays in the background. 

Sam Adams: “Your cousin from Boston” returns in this vaccine awareness spot by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, per Ad Age. He gets the shot, passes out, has a vision of drinking Sam Adams indoors, then wakes up as the nurse reminds him he still has to wear a mask. We’ve come a long way since “Sex for Sam.”

Zoom out

So if red, white, and blue-blooded beer brands with audiences across the political spectrum feel comfortable putting out vaccine PSAs...why don’t more brands go all-in? 

• “For those brands that aren’t messaging around vaccinations…if they can make a link to consumers that is visceral and will resonate, it may not come across as authentic,” Professor Schweidel told Marketing Brew. 
• Regarding vaccine messaging, Schweidel thinks brands are running a certain calculus here. “How many new customers will I gain, and how many do I put at risk?” he specified. 
• “And, if the answer isn’t clear, they’re opting to avoid becoming part of the conversation,” Schweidel concluded. 

My takeaway: In 2020, brands grew comfortable drawing sociopolitical lines in the sand, hoping firm stances would help, not hurt, brand loyalty. So when it comes to vaccine roll-out, brands are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. — PB

PLATFORMS

Twitter Keeps It Simple

It’s Spring cleaning time, and Twitter’s ready to throw away ad products that have been collecting dust in the garage. 

Last week, Twitter made two advertiser-friendly moves. 

• It pruned 22+ inventory options down to just five—with a rainbow-colored org chart to help marketers understand what they can buy. 
• It announced a partnership with Nielsen, to “help advertisers to measure and plan campaigns across a variety of media platforms,” according to AdExchanger. 

Marketers can now rejoice at the simplicity of an easier workflow, which, Twitter said, will roll out over the next several months.

Twitter hopes brands will use more than one format (i.e. pay more) to catch eyeballs. Last year, Twitter took home $3.2 billion in ad revenue, and expects to make $5.4 billion by 2023, according to a forecast by eMarketer. 

Measure it

Twitter also announced a partnership with Nielsen, giving a sturdier backbone to the platform’s video offering. 

The integration will slide into Twitter’s pre-roll video ads—those short videos you’re sometimes allowed to skip—which run before the platform’s “premium video content.”

The TL;DR: Brands can now check with Nielsen whether spending on Twitter, like television, will be worth the investment. — RB

SPONSORED BY AD-LIB.IO

Face It: You Take Too Long to Get Ads out the Door

Didn’t think you’d be called to the mat for lame ad processes in this here newsletter, did you? Well, the creative management SaaS pros at Ad-Lib.io are here to help you make P.R.O. moves.

P as in Production that uses AI and collaboration tools to build run-ready ads based on your brilliant assets. 

R as in Relevant ads that are customized at scale within a single platform, letting creative and media teams converge at one water cooler.

O as in Optimized with algorithms that give you key insights into which creative is going to perform the best for you, before and during the campaign.

And while that’s a whole lot already, Ad-Lib.io saves you the hassle of weeks of tagging and coding with a one-button approach to create ready-to-air ads.

If you’re looking for a personalizable, scalable, data-derivable approach to ad creation, look to the pros at Ad-Lib.io.

SEO

Unblocked

Last week, The Markup reported that Google’s YouTube blocklist of so-called hate terms was as permeable as cheesecloth, allowing many slogans to seep through. 

• Among 86 “hate-related” phrases tested, only 18, like “KKK,” were blocked. 
• The terms “White power” and “blood and soil” all suggested millions of videos.

And The Markup also found that the blocked terms had very easy work-arounds. Add a space or collapse phrases, and you could buy against “WhitePride.”

On top of this, marketers who wanted to advertise against “Black Lives Matter” or “Black Power” couldn’t. YouTube also blocked “Black Excellence,” “LGBTQ,” and “Say Their Names.” So creators using these terms can’t earn ad revenue.

“The most important thing to identify is not the discrepancy within keywords,” Claire Atkin, cofounder of Check My Ads, told Marketing Brew. “It’s the fact that they’re using keywords at all.” 

Google has since corrected most of these issues, although it still blocks social justice terms. 

“To block against some keywords but not others...is just bad business,” Atkin said. “It’s incompetence more than evilness.” — RB

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Cannes Lions announced its 2021 jury shortly after pivoting from in-person plans to an all-digital experience. 
• Omnicom is running a PSA contest calling for Asian representation in advertising. 
• Reddit is reportedly working on its own Clubhouse-like social audio feature.
• Bustle Digital Group is bringing the infamous Gawker back to life. 

SPONSORED BY TEMPLAFY

We stan being on-brand. Templafy enables marketing teams to effortlessly manage and distribute the latest on-brand and compliant content—ensuring employees company-wide always have the latest versions at their fingertips. It makes it simple for marketing teams to guarantee brand consistency without playing the role of brand police. Make staying on-brand easier than going off-brand.

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Influencers: From nano to macro to whatever Selena Gomez is, here’s how an influencer’s follower count impacts their engagement rate. 

Video: This infographic explains how video killed the radio star is currently influencing consumer decision making.

Google: Just landed a new Google Ads account? Find out how to clean it up and make it your own.  

There’s data for that: For dining? Yep. Entertainment? Mm-hmm. Shopping?! Most definitely. Morning Consult tracks how consumer attitudes shift in real time across a range of categories—helping you talk to your target audience in the right way.*

AD ANTIQUES

Vintage Ad Browser

Is this a Helena Rubinstein ad from 1944, or a beer ad from 2021 ?  

ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• How to market a supermarket
• iOS 14.5’s opt-in update is coming this spring
• Jerri DeVard Launches Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA)