Most consumer-product marketers have shifted some of their ad dollars from traditional media to the Internet. Foster's beer has taken a more dramatic step. The Australian beer's U.S. owner, SABMiller,
has decided to stop advertising on television and shift its entire American ad budget to the Net. Although the brand's TV spending is relatively small--last year Foster's spent $5 million on TV ads,
according to TNS Media Intelligence--the move is significant. It is representative of a trend among certain target groups--in this case young men--away from TV viewing and toward the Web. If the
initial Web ads aren't effective, Foster's will tweak them, but it won't go back to TV advertising, says Gary Cattell, Foster's brand director. SABMiller's decision won't affect ad campaigns outside
the U.S. because the company doesn't own the brand anywhere else in the world. The new Foster's campaign has two elements. Ads on Heavy.com promote a competition to win a date in Las Vegas with one of
10 Australian models. Separately, Ogilvy & Mather will run a "viral" campaign, aimed at sparking word-of-mouth buzz about Foster's, by posting videos on Heavy.com and other Web sites. The videos will
look homemade to disguise the fact that they're commercials.
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