According to AdAge, Budweiser is this year's biggest advertiser -- privy to five minutes of air time. The beer company launched its social media campaign on Friday, and already thousands of people are taking part. The idea, essentially, is to infiltrate every level of Facebook. First, you might see the targeted ad for the campaign in your newsstream (see the photo above). If you are so inclined to vote, you must first become a fan of the beer:
Assuming that you remain a fan after voting, Bud can now send you updates and info about its product. Also, the fact that you became a fan of the beer will show up in your personal feed, which could prompt friends to wonder why and click on the link as well.
Once you become a fan, you can vote for one of three videos: "Payment" (which deals with how Bud is "currency" among men), "Attention" (which plays on the theme of snagging the eye of the elusive bartender) and "Fence" (a semi-nonsensical vid about the friendship between a cow and a horse and the fence that comes between them). Once you vote for the ad of your choice (I picked "Fence") Facebook asks you if you would like to post your vote to your wall. This a rather smart move on the part of the social networking site and Bud -- now your friends can comment on your choice and click through to make their own.
Although Bud may be the biggest advertiser on the block this Super Bowl, it's hardly the only company making use of social media. Pepsi decided to nix traditional commercials in favor of a mammoth social media campaign, and Inside Facebook reports that Coca-Cola and Doritos (a division of PepsiCo) have also gotten into the Facebook ad game. Even shunned ads -- like the infamous ManCrunch spot and GoDaddy's "Lola" -- have managed to make use of social media (by going viral) to get some of that Big Game ad glitter.
It's official: Super Bowl ads are getting more buzz that ever before -- and the game has yet to begin -- and it's all because of the power of the web and social media.