Brewery to push Web site as visits decline

ST. LOUIS -- Cyberspace can be a rough neighborhood, even for the king of beers.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. has seen a decline in visitors to its online advertising Web site Bud.TV, which aims to draw 20-something consumers with edgy content.

The site was launched in February but started to fizzle in March. The number of visitors fell from 253,000 to 152,000, said Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of global media and sports marketing.

Ponturo said the number of visitors in April is expected to be flat. The brewer has scaled back its goals for the site, hoping to draw about 500,000 visitors each month by 2008 instead of the 3 million it originally hoped.

Ponturo said Anheuser-Busch knew Bud.TV would require some tweaking.

"We're sort of learning on the job, but in a glass house as we do it," he said.

Bud.TV is more elaborate than any other Web site the company has launched. It's meant to be a cross between a cable television channel with original shows and the popular Web site YouTube, where viewers post their own videos.

Considering the declining interest, Anheuser-Busch is adding new features to Bud.TV and will begin a marketing campaign to draw more viewers, Ponturo said. The overhauled site will have more videos accessible on the home page and allow viewers to e-mail the videos to their friends, he said.

While Bud.TV's initial results have been disappointing, the true measure of Bud.TV's success won't be known for some time, said Eric Shepard, executive editor of the industry publication Beer Marketer's Insights.

"It seems to me that people ought to just sit back and take a breath" before judging Bud.TV's long-term prospects, he said.

Two factors seem to be hurting Bud.TV in the early months, Shepard said. The first is a requirement for viewers to enter personal information to verify they are of drinking age.

The second is the difficulty in creating shows with appeal on the Internet, Shepard said. Many hit videos that appear on YouTube are zany, spontaneous clips captured by amateurs. It's tough for hired writers to do the same thing.

Ponturo said the age-verification requirement has crimped traffic more than expected.

A one-time registration page requires viewers to enter their name, zip code and birth date. Anheuser-Busch added the requirement after critics said Bud.TV might be a way to market alcohol to teenagers.

"People are not conditioned to give personal information for entertainment sites," Ponturo said.

There's no talk of losing the age-verification feature, Ponturo said. The brewer does plan to spiff up the registration page to better fit the "attitude" of Bud.TV, he said.

"The registration page probably looked too much like a bank loan statement," he said.

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On the Net:

Beer Marketer's Insights: http://www.beerinsights.com

Bud.TV: http://www.bud.tv