Anheuser Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer behind brands like Budweiser and Bud Light, has mastered the art of field marketing.
Every day across the country, Brand Activation Managers (BAMs) reach consumers in-market at the right time, in the right place, with the right message. From live music concerts to themed sampling activations at bars and restaurants, AB InBev knows field marketing is one of the best ways to build brand awareness, engage consumers at the point of purchase, and actually contribute to a lift in sales.
It’s a high-touch marketing strategy that has helped AB InBev significantly expand its footprint in key markets and increase brand visibility on signage and menus.
AB needed a scalable, integrated platform that would make it easier for BAMs to create and share content directly from the field, and send recap reports directly to the AB marketing team.
Coordinating pre and post-activation logistics, communication and reporting across so many individuals and stakeholders became a big challenge. Despite its success, AB InBev was faced with a challenge many beer and spirits brands encounter: Because its Brand Activation Managers are employed by distributors and outside agencies, it became increasingly difficult for AB InBev to track the ROI of its field marketing initiatives across the country.
Splash worked with AB InBev on reimagining the global brand activation workflow from top to bottom. The key? Ensure the information and data flow between each stakeholder—from the brand, to the distributors, to the regional and local account managers—was frictionless, easy and immediate.
The team settled on an integrated tech stack that included: Splash for all on-site activation logistics, Salesforce for attributing activity to a specific account, Teradata for syncing consumer data, Percolate for aggregating BAM-generated content on-site, and ExactTarget for email remarketing.
Splash also worked with AB on creating a scalable, customizable mobile app platform. It was the perfect engagement mechanism for BAMs to: (1) collect consumer data on-site (like email opt-ins), (2) generate socially-shareable content, and (3) inspire product purchase on-site.
Unlike one-off field marketing apps, which didn't always integrate smoothly into existing workflows, every new mobile app was built on the Splash platform. That meant that all data was fed into one place. Every time.
For example: During Bud Light's #UpForWhatever campaign, BAMs hosted hundreds of "Summer Bucket List" activations at bars, restaurants and hangout spots around the country. The "Heads or Tails" custom mobile app enabled BAMs to engage and opt-in consumers through everyone's favorite game of chance.
The Shock Top "Wedgehead Staring Contest" is another great example of an engaging mobile app built completely on Splash. Who could resist a staring contest with an orange wedge?
Today, BAMs across the country rely on the Splash mobile app at hundreds of promotional events at bars, restaurants, festivals, sporting events, concerts and clubs.
In 2014 alone, AB InBev’s Splash-powered field marketing program grew to over 500 active brand ambassadors who hosted over 100,000 activations.
AB InBev has doubled the size of their Brand Activation Manager program and is arming hundreds more with the Splash app to track their continued success.
Since launching its field marketing platform with Splash, AB InBev has seen a number of positive results:
01 | Significant product lift across each account. Not only was AB able to measure the sales lift at the account level attributed to each field marketing initiative, but the results were amazing.
02 | Distributors loved it. The simplified workflow made it easier for current and prospective distributors to agree to participate in branded activations with AB. No hassle, no fuss.
03 | Quick, easy (and inexpensive) activations. The beauty of the Splash platform is that it made it simpler to design, build and deploy custom mobile apps to complement any campaign. The Splash team works directly with AB's traditional and digital agencies to make sure each execution is on-brand and on-point.
04 | An increase in consumer engagement. With Splash, AB InBev has been able to collect more than 1 million consumer profiles from on-site activations. (In fact, Splash has become one of the most significant resources for collecting content.)
