The Carlton Draught Big Ad was an advertisement created by George Patterson and Partners of Melbourne, which used viral marketing techniques before being released on television.
In the advertisement, two armies march toward one another singing Carmina Burana: O Fortuna by Carl Orff, but replaced with lyrics such as "It’s a big ad/ Very big ad…expensive ad/This ad better sell some bloody beer". Viewed from the air, we see the armies form a glass of Carlton Draught and a body. The glass is then lifted to the mouth, and we see the beer flowing into the stomach of the figure.
The advertisement was released on the internet two weeks prior to being shown on television. Just 24 hours after release, the Big Ad had been downloaded 162,000 times (Frilingos, 2005, p.8) and within two weeks it had been seen by over one million viewers in 132 countries (Lees, 2005). The viral release of the Big Ad was so successful that the television media budget was reduced so as to not overexpose the advertisement (Lee, 2005, p.29).
The company decided to use a viral campaign because of the distracting environment in which television is viewed, and the fragmented audiences of traditional media. Matt Keen, General Manager of Regular Beer at Foster’s Australia, said that with digital media, the audience has actively taken the time to see the ad and it is a way of personally engaging with drinkers (quoted by Lee, 2005, p.29).
Firstly, the advertisement was streamed to its audience via a dedicated website (www.bigad.com.au) rather than being downloadable and spread via email. Sophocleous and Cubito (2005, p.6) say that undoubtable part of the success of Big Ad was that it was streamed rather than being in the smaller format of an MPEG. This enabled the video to provide a high quality image and contributed to the success of the viral campaign. However, it is important to note that this technology was more expensive; the streaming technology, provided by Vividas, cost the client around $30,000 (Sophocleous and Cubito, 2005, p.6).
Secondly, the connectivity of the advertisement contributed to its success. The Big Ad’s dedicated website had around 3,160 webpage links as of October 1, 2005, according to Google’s link search. Many of these links were within blog entries, but it cannot be established if any were seeded by the advertising agency, the company or their staff. Also within days of the campaign being released, the Big Ad website had ten mentions in major newspapers around Australian (according to a search conducted on October 1, 2005).
Finally, and probably the most important factor contributing to the success of the advertisement, was the tone of the video. The advertisement was a parody of advertising. This type of comic, satirical tone has been seen to increase the likelihood of a viral message being passed on to a person’s acquaintances (see Viral Marketing). However Carlton Draught has not contradicted their marketing strategy in doing this; this type of appeal has been used throughout the brand’s recent advertisements, including "Made from Beer" and "Canoe". Therefore the success of Big Ad can also be attributed to its comical content and the fact that this appeal is consistent with the positioning of the brand.
Agency: George Patterson and Partners, Melbourne
Production: Plaza Films
Post- Production: Animal Logic (The Matrix)
Brenton Doyle 16:20, 5 Oct 2005 (EST)
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