Last Call For Bud.TV

from the bottom-of-the-bottle dept

Wed, May 23rd 2007 4:39pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Last year, Budweiser announced that it would launch its own online video channel called Bud.TV, featuring a range of original content targeted to the company's young male demographic. While the project was hailed as ambitious, it was always going be a challenge to make it a site that users would actually want to go to on a regular basis. Making things even harder was the issue of age verification, which had lawmakers breathing down the company's neck. So it doesn't come as much of a surprise to see that the company may soon pull the plug on the site and redeploy its content elsewhere around its web properties. Still, while Bud.TV may have been a failure in terms of brand building, the company now has more experience about what works (or at least what doesn't work) on the web. If it takes this lesson and keeps on experimenting, which it sounds like the company wants to do, the project won't represent a total waste.

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9 Comments

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Monarch, 23 May 2007 @ 5:24pm

Well I can see why it failed. It's almost impossible to get into the site. For some reason the site needs to verify your name and zip code of your driver's license from what you type in. Well, I don't know what happened, but it didn't take mine, and the only other way to get in to the site, is to fax a copy of the DL to them.
No wonder it failed.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2007 @ 6:00pm

worked for me first shot... never got asked for an ID.
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Drew, 23 May 2007 @ 6:53pm

Room for a more useful Bud.tv
Finally a domain name has opened for the Cannabaceae family's cooler older sibling.
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slimcat (profile), 23 May 2007 @ 7:49pm

Brand building
Perhaps if they spent some time learning how to make a 'good' beer, rather than carbonated horse piss, they wouldn't have to be concerned about attracting more customers with gimmicks. Budweiser, the Microsoft of beer.

For you bud fans: Yeah, they sell a lot of beer, but only because it's cheap and ubiquitous. It's still horse piss.
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Labatt, 23 May 2007 @ 8:20pm

Re: Brand building
You are right about Bud being horse piss. Nothing beats the quality of an ice cold canadian beer like Labatt's Blue.
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T.J., 23 May 2007 @ 8:22pm

It's not that bad...
Sure it's not the best beer out there, by a longshot. I consider somewhat of a beer "collector", I have over 100 different bottles of "rare" beer, plus all the commercialized ones in my room (only in college eh?). Anyway I don't mind Budweiser, it wets the whistle when your low on cash. Great beer? No. Horse Piss? No
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ratebeer.com, 24 May 2007 @ 6:42am

ratebeer.com
ratebeer.com is the answer to any beer inquiries.

I say, horsepiss? yes!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 24 May 2007 @ 3:06pm

100 beers doesn't make you a collector; I have over 500 bottles and have tried some 800 beers. You are a "collector" when you realize that yes, indeed, Bud is horse piss. Not the worst beer I've tried, but certainly one I will never drink again.

P.S. Beeradvocate is a far better site than ratebeer.
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rEdEyEz, 24 May 2007 @ 3:34pm

Bud.TV to offer free beer?
Not.

The only thing I want from A-B is BEER.

While I find some of their marketing techniques to be humorous, (commericals, etc.), until some "genius" comes up with a way for me to download a frosty mug, what's the point?
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