Dive Brief:

• Anheuser-Busch is rolling out digital count-up vaccine trackers and other media to prepare consumers for a safe return to normalcy, according to a press release. The campaign entitled "Let's Grab A Beer, America," is an extension of the brewing company's broader "Let's Grab A Beer" initiative that debuted earlier this year.
• Trackers will provide real-time data on vaccine distribution to educate local communities and spur conversation, and will appear in digital out-of-home (DOOH) media in major cities including Boston, Los Angeles and New York. In the Southeast, additional ads will run on social media to promote vaccine awareness.
• The campaign, directed by Alex Prager and developed by Wieden+Kennedy, includes a 60-second spot featuring several of the brewer's brands and highlighting the simple pleasures that people have missed out on as a result of the pandemic. Anheuser-Busch has been active in using its marketing to help stimulate the country's COVID recovery, and this campaign sees the company investing in media activations to build on these efforts.

Dive Insight:

With its latest effort, Anheuser-Busch is encouraging a return to normalcy through a multichannel media investment. Digital vaccine trackers, which have been used by entities from The New York Times to Johns Hopkins University, are a visually helpful way of illustrating progress in vaccination distribution, and Anheuser-Busch is deploying them through OOH channels to better educate people about their community's numbers. While just under 43% of Americans have been fully vaccinated, some states are displaying lower rates, particularly in the Southeast. This may signal why Anheuser-Busch is disseminating extra social media ads in the region.

The campaign's new 60-second spot seeks to excite viewers for post-pandemic society by underlining many of the social occasions the pandemic has made difficult, such as workout classes, first dates and family reunions. The spot will run on digital, social and OOH media. Other beer brands like Michelob Ultra and Dos Equis have emphasized similar messaging in recent spots, reflecting industry-wide anticipation for the return of social events in which drinking is common.

Brands will have to be wary, however, that their campaigns don't go too far in expressing this anticipation, for consumers may be turned off by ads that are overly eager in depicting germ-spreading activities. For example, while consumers may be OK with the family reunion that is tactfully portrayed in the Anheuser-Busch spot, the commercial's couple that meets at a crowded sports bar could brush up against viewers' comfort levels.

"Let's Grab A Beer, America" builds on previous Anheuser-Busch efforts to aid COVID recovery. The campaign arrives one week after the brewing company announced it would foot the bill for America's first round of beer if the country reached the White House's goal of getting 70% of adults partially vaccinated by July 4. In April, AB-owned Budweiser debuted a similar effort offering free beer to 10,000 consumers who proved they got vaccinated.

Other brands that have contributed to the brewing company's greater COVID recovery efforts include Bud Light, whose "Summer Stimmy" proposal will give out $10 million in prizes and experiences, and Stella Artois, which ran a social media campaign at the onset of the pandemic that raised over $2.5 million for local bars.