How Old Milwaukee Gamed The Super Bowl

The beer company hit social-media gold with its Will Ferrell ad, which it paid pennies to air in North Platte, Neb.

For most national brands, buying a TV ad during the Super Bowl is the antithesis of cheap, narrowly targeted advertising. Not so for Old Milwaukee.

On Sunday night, like many of its deeper-pocketed rival beer brands, Old Milwaukee rolled out a new TV commercial. The ad featured a celebrity endorsement of sorts from the comedian Will Ferrell. But rather than targeting the mass national audience that tuned in by the tens of millions to NBC stations and affiliates across the country, the Old Milwaukee spot aired in front of a much smaller subgroup—specifically, the thousands of people watching the Super Bowl in the country’s second-smallest TV market, North Platte, Neb.

The 30-second commercial, against a stirring soundtrack, features a single shot of Ferrell in a pair of shorts, striding through a wheat field toward the camera. He catches a can of Old Milwaukee that is tossed to him; just as he opens it, the commercial ends abruptly, mid-pitch.

Unconventional? Sure. But as a bit of marketing jujitsu, pure brilliance.

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