Broadband Jungle Blog

BudTV

Yes, they finally launched and once you make it past the velvet ropes in the form of a strict age verification process, you’ll reach the promised land of broadband television, ca. 2007. Looks like AB did everything right here, BudTV will quickly represent a new quality standard for any type of original content on the web, whether it’s sponsored, ad supported or re-purposed.

Lorne Manly explores this new phenomenon at great length in this in-depth NY Times Magazine article:

“Bud.TV may be a marketing venture at heart, but it is marketing sotto voce. The shows’ plots won’t revolve around the quest for the perfect beer and a beautiful woman to share it with. Characters won’t declaim the virtues of Budweiser’s freshness at every opportunity. The site won’t be cluttered with banner ads. Anheuser-Busch executives are banking on a more subtle connection. Attach a brand name to something cool, something entertaining, and that elusive young man (and to a lesser extent, young woman) may check out Bud.TV’s offerings again and again, send them along to friends, even take a stab at creating his own minifilm for the site. Cultivate that warm, fuzzy feeling about Budweiser, and the company may cement the loyalty of the existing customer, or better, woo the uncommitted or hard-to-reach drinker to a Bud Light or a Michelob or a Peels malt-liquor beverage.”

‘rich’ broadband advertising

Salut, c’est Chloé! With the help of fresh-faced & very alluring Chloé, Neutrogena France enticed teenage girls to exchange beauty tips and post videos on a blog site dubbed Visibly Pretty.

Chloé got the ball rolling with 4 straightforward clips shot web-cam-style that are running simultaneously on the homepage. The campaign hit a nerve – girls immediately responded by posting countless stills and comments and submitted more than 1,500 videos to the site, turning it into a forum to foster diverse ideas of beauty and self-esteem.

Washington Mutual expanded their print campaign featuring stodgy bankers at the competition into a micro-site called: Trapped Banker. Forever stuck in bankers’ hell behind a red rope, this group of old-school Wall Street types with cranky attitude is condemned to answer questions with the help of rich (and very entertaining) media.

Specialized Bicycles are no strangers to cool interactive web environments packed with entertaining and essential information. They’ve just added a micro-site called Specialized Ride-in-Movies where they screen pretty edgy web films from a world where bikes routinely outperform any car, as seen in the short ‘Outlaw In Lycra.’

In an effort to confront stagnant sales and fire up its image, Ford Motor Company has been on an internal and external mission to re-invent itself. Their extremely professional and authentic looking documentary-style web series Bold Moves takes this message way outside the realm of corporate messages and straight into cyberspace.

Apparently fearless about letting the public peek in on how conflicted the company’s current course is, Bold Moves doesn’t shy away from big questions such as fossil fuels, developing alternatives and takes viewers to board and strategy meetings. Ford has so far posted 9 episodes containing candid interviews with top executives, custom car icon Carroll Shelby and successfully reveals how hard and complex it might be to steer a vehicle of that magnitude into the future.