Reddit Case Study: Newcastle Brown Ale Super Bowl Campaign

This reddit case study post focuses on Newcastle Brown Ale’s Super Bowl campaign, which exemplified the benefits of respecting and harnessing the reddit community’s creativity.

Contents
1. An Open Call For Ridiculousness
2. The Spot
3. Campaign Alignment

1. An Open Call For Ridiculousness

Shortly before the 2014 Super Bowl, Newcastle Brown Ale ran a cheeky sponsored link saying “Newcastle Brown Ale wants your love. And money. If we made a Mega Huge Game Day Ad targeted just at reddit, what should be in it?” This question was an open call for the reddit community’s ridiculous humor and creativity, and generated over 600 comments about what Newcastle should include in their video. Upvoted suggestions included bears drinking beer, flaming cars, and bananas (for scale).

Reddit Case Study: Newcastle Super Bowl Campaign

Screen Shot 2014-04-15 at 10.27.14 AMScreen Shot 2014-04-15 at 10.27.51 AM

2. The Spot

A few days after their initial post, Newcastle came back with their reddit-influenced Super Bowl video spot. Indeed, it was extremely low-budget, and redditor suggestions were only included by means of text-overlay and voice over, but the reddit community was pleased overall: Newcastle had asked and listened.

And it ended with a banana being thrown at a six-pack of Newcastle.

Screen Shot 2014-04-15 at 10.37.25 AM

3. Campaign Alignment

In concurrence with their Super Bowl efforts on reddit, Newcastle ran a larger Super Bowl campaign called If We Made It, which was a series of actual Superbowl commercials that were ridiculously reimagined and storyboarded by Newcastle — including a take on the Stephen Colbert pistachio ad where Colbert instead gets eaten by a mutant pistachio.

The If We Made It campaign was referenced in Newcastle’s promoted reddit posts, and also within the description of their reddit spot on YouTube. As such, the reddit efforts served as a feeder into the larger If We Made It campaign, ensuring that redditors had the option to further engage with Newcastle if they wanted.

Newcaslte If We Made It

Newcastle If We Made It PIstachio

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