All you needed this summer was a little bit of sunshine and the Budweiser Ice Cold Index App.

This week marks the end of the Budweiser Ice Cold Index promotion which has been rolled out across Ireland since April. No one has escaped the TV, print, radio, outdoor, and digital Irish commercials that ironically involved no Irish people, was shot on a beach location in Cape Town, South Africa and is fronted by US bearded ‘weather man’ Scott Campbell! 

So what was all the fuss about?

It was called a “groundbreaking idea that links daily real world temperatures with offers on Budweiser Ice Cold draught”. In a nutshell, Budweiser launched a mobile e-voucher application that offered Irish consumers vouchers based on the temperature in their location to redeem at participating on-trade premises across Ireland.

If the temperature went above 20°C consumers got offered a free pint. The application also offered €2 off when the temperature reached 18 - 20°C, €1 off if the temperature was 16 or 17°C and some additional free bonus pints thrown in for good measure. On the designated "Index day", consumers could redeem their free or money-off voucher between 1pm and 11.59pm or until the premises closed (whichever was earlier). Once consumers downloaded the voucher, the participating Index bar provided them with a pub code and they then had two minutes to redeem their voucher before it expires.

 

All sounds very simple, so what where the catches?

You had to download the “Budweiser Ice Cold Index” mobile application to begin receiving the vouchers and if you did not have an iPhone or an Android phone the text system was tricky to manoeuvre with a basic requirement of IOS 4.3 or later.

The temperature was recorded at 12pm daily no earlier or later than.

You could redeem one voucher per day on a maximum of four days during a seven day period. This restriction was put in place on the grounds it is not advisable to consume alcoholic beverages every day.

The mobile application was dependent on mobile phone reception so you could not download the mobile voucher without a clear signal.

The vouchers could only be redeemed in participating outlets and you had to check the pub locator in the Budweiser Ice Cold Index Application to review where you could redeem the voucher in your area.

You had to ask the bar staff for the pub code to validate your voucher

Once you entered the pub code and it was validated, you had to show the bar staff the redemption screen within 120 seconds. After this time it self deleted and you would not be able to use another voucher until the following day.

The vouchers where just for Budweiser Ice Cold draught and could not be redeemed for other Diageo beverages. 

At the beginning there where some teething problems the general public accepted the restrictions set in place however the technological supports let the applications potential down. The application sometimes failed to validate ages, the pub finder crashed, the temperature gauge was argued to be recording temperatures at one to two degrees lower than other weather specific applications, it was also slow and had a tendency to crash. Evidently the application scored low on the apple store with an average review of two out of five.  Some people have even gone as far as blaming all the Budweiser Ice Cold “The Hotter the Day the Less You Pay” advertising for this summer's poor weather, that the television advertisements have put the jinx on the country ever seeing a heatwave again.

 

However the current version, updated the end of July, seems to have had a more positive response of four and a half out of five rating from customers. The technological difficulties have seemed to be overcome and if successful upon final review the concept may even be rolled out to other markets in the UK. Already the “Bud Ice Index” has been nominated by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)for the 2011 MIXX Awards for numerous categories including: Mobile Platform or App – Single, Direct Response and Lead Generation – Campaign, and Mobile Platforms and Apps – Campaign. One thing is already for sure; although this campaign would cause Budweiser to lose money in predominantly warm-weathered climates, the mobile application works well in Ireland where plus 20 does not occur every day – or hardly ever during our short summers. The Budweiser Ice Cold Index linked to the weather was also a great way to combine the refreshing ice cold nature of the beverage with clever marketing and generated a lot of interest even from those who did not drink it beforehand. In terms of mobile phone applications and developments the campaign was a prime example of truly engaging and interacting with your customers through this medium. But I might have a tendency to agree that it may have jinxed our short lived summer!