Rumor has it that a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures are treasures that represent the brand’s legacy on music. But, although they are part of Budweiser’s history, the brand cannot show them. Budweiser never asked or payed for these pictures, and that’s the beauty of it. We wanted to keep it this way. So, instead of promoting them, we decided to simply give people the directions to find each of these pictures by themselves, in their natural habitat: Google. All these pictures can be easily found via Google search, as long as you know the exact directions. With a smart use of the search engine, we tracked all the combinations of words that can take people straight to each picture, and with this data we created an all type cross-media campaign, inviting people to search for specific combinations of words on the internet.

We worked cross-media to be able to contemplate 10 different combinations of tag words, putting the consumer on a journey with complementary stories on social, media displays, OOH, and even indoor media. We were able to organically direct people to each desired result/photography, with no need of any SEO investment. If a user searched for one specific combination, we could track it and impact it with the other combinations of tag words, keeping the hunt going.

The relevance of these photographs on the search engine increased by more than 7000%, reaching levels they had never reached before, even though they portray genuine moments of some of the most iconic artists of all time. We had more than 5 million searches on specific combinations of words we created. And, most importantly, this campaign opened the gates for Bud’s new positioning on music, giving people the necessary proof to sustain a very bold statement: Budweiser is “the beer behind the music”. And no other beer brand can claim the same.

Budweiser Tagwords is a direct invitation to the music fans, for a dive into the deep relationship between Budweiser and music. It’s not a message simply delivered, it’s a conversation that relies on the consumer’s response, and it’s fed according to the level of curiosity each user has. If one specific combination of words is searched on Google, we are able to track the user and keep the hunt going.

We selected 10 pictures that contemplate different types of music and displayed the online ads according to the music taste and search history of each user, so we could start this hunt with more relevance. But we wanted to take over the conversations around the country, so we worked on a cross-media strategy, exploring all the places connected to music, including OOH close to music venues, taking over music bars, pubs and clubs with beer mats carrying our tag words, and even projecting our message near to music festival we weren’t sponsoring. As every search happens online, and the combinations of words to be searched are very specific, we were able to track who was searching each one of them, so we could keep impacting the same user with a different combination of tag words, thus creating a pre-defined tour through the brand’s history along the hunt.

Budweiser is one of the few brands that has truly become part of pop culture, and this started when the brand's reputation grew stronger within the alternative music community, with magazines referring to Budweiser as "the alternative beer”. Being ingrained in alternative culture created an astonishing effect for Budweiser: artists who were taking their first steps, but later on became huge music icons, embraced the brand with no request or paychecks. By searching on Google, we discovered pictures of artists like Jagger, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett, Hendrix, and others, casually drinking a Bud in their time off. In fact, if you search for Budweiser + any music legend, you'll probably find a photo of both of them together. So, for the launch of the new tagline for Budweiser in the music platform, “The beer behind the music”, we wanted to find a way to expose this background to the public.