At the outset of SXSW 2016, the self-anointed King of Beers launched their U.S. anti-drunk driving “Tackle Impossible: A Force for Safer Roads” initiative. As parent company Anheuser-Busch put it, “The initiative is designed to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit of young adults to tackle global road safety and help find innovative solutions to drunk driving.” Industry and interested media described the initiative, introduced during SXSW Interactive, as a “hackathon.”
We were recruited to promote their worthwhile initiative.
Budweiser used their own brand ambassadors, and we learned from them, and decided after SXSW ended to create our own Brand ambassador service, seen in our Driver engagement menu. The brand ambassadors solicited pedestrians with the offer of free pedicab rides to the Budweiser venue if, and only if, they tweeted their idea on how to #TackleImpossible. The tweets ranged from the silly to the sincere.
@Budweiser #tackleimpossible beds on pedicabs, so people who are drunk and sleepy can relax and get home safe— Sacha! (@astrosacha) March 14, 2016
In order to have maximum effect, our 20 pedicabs were split into 3 separate teams, each anchored by a billboard trike. The teams would fan out across downtown to the areas with highest foot traffic to reach the most people.
Budweiser selected the following options for their campaign:
Full wraps for 20 pedicabs, from our Ad printing menu. Something that they did that I am a strong proponent of was adding their hashtag #TackleImpossible onto the wrap itself.
Driver branding and Driver-for-hire, from our Driver engagement menu. The pedicab drivers were provided Budweiser-branded t-shirts, and they provided free rides for 8 hours (from 4 PM to midnight), from March 12th through 14th, for a total of 480 hours. They provided over 600 rides!
3 Billboard trikes, from our Outside the box menu. The billboard trike operators also rode for 8 hours per day, for 3 days, for a total of 72 hours.
20 iDashes, from our Digital menu. Each of the pedicabs had an iDash attached, and those looped a short video starring a delightfully snarky Dame Helen Mirren, who criticizes anyone who dares to drive drunk. The video was originally aired during the Super Bowl.
Their campaign is part of our Alcoholic beverages portfolio.