When MillerCoors was blocked by Anheuser-Bush’s exclusive deal to be the only beer advertiser during the Super Bowl, the company was forced to think of a creative way to get their brand in front of consumers. The solution MillerCoors came up with was to place a one-second ad on all of NBC’s affiliate stations broadcasting the game. You can still view the one-second advertisement at their Web site www.1secondad.com. Well, its now almost a month after the Super Bowl and its turns out the city of Pittsburg was not the only winner on Super Bowl Sunday – MillerCoors’s unique strategy paid off.
MillerCoors reported that sales were up 8.6% during the week after the Super Bowl. It was the highest sales increase during the week after the Super Bowl for the company in nearly two years. The company who purchased the least amount of commercial air time received some of the strongest sales results. “One of the big things for us in making the ads was that we thought we could sell more beer,” said High Life Brand Manager Kevin Oglesby. “We definitely sold more beer.” (Ad Age 2/23/09) It was not just the one-second ad that paid off for MillerCoor’s; it was their entire Super Bowl strategy.
