Case Study: Beer.com’s Virtual Bartender

Written by Paul van Veenendaal on October 3rd, 2007 |

How do you lure 9.3 million unique visitors to your Web site in three weeks? Take the premise of Burger King’s widely popular “Subservient Chicken” then substitute the chicken for Tammy, a “Virtual Bartender” who’s willing to please. Dhtree shares some interesting figures of Beer.com’s successfull viral game from 2004, where you had to guess commands. A second version was released in April 2005.

• 23.6 million visits to the Virtual Bartender properties since Nov 2004
• Average length of Visit on the Virtual Bartender properties: 10 minutes
• VB Fan club continues to attract 8,000 – 10,000 new members per month
• The first ‘Fan Site’ appeared within 12 hours
• Hit 10 Million sessions in just 28 days

You can find more figures at Dhthree. (Source: Strategy Mag, Dhthree)

One Comment

• Paul says:

  September 16, 2008 at 10:59

  Challenge:

  Beer.com competes in the online men’s lifestyle segment against other branded websites like AskMen.com and Maximonline.com. Beer.com needed a low cost way to drive site traffic and awareness to the site with the preferred method being a viral campaign.

  Objectives:

  To build a database of the key target audience.
  To drive new and repeat traffic to http://www.beer.com
  To increase loyalty to beer.com
  To connect and interact with beer.com users.
  To develop a unique, viral online component to attract new visitors to the web site.
  To raise awareness and value proposition of beer.com within the online advertising community.

  Strategy:

  This was accomplished by:
  Beer.com recognized that if its target users had an online property that was engaging enough it could drive immediate traffic, online sales, and advertising sales and could create a database of club members to that be marketed to monthly.

  This was accomplished by launching an interactive application called Virtual Bartender. Virtual Bartender is an online video feature that allows visitors to interact with a beautiful bar maiden just by typing in requests. These requests are stored and linked with specific video files that are programmed with a natural search capability from a keyword engine.

  The link was distributed via 10 emails to close friends of beer.com to start it off.

  Implemented special membership benefit offers and various bar maiden requests to keep consumers engaged and interested in becoming part of the Virtual Bartender Fan Club.

  Developed a second Virtual Bartender property in April 2005

  Execution:

  23.6 MM visits to the Virtual Bartender properties since Nov 2004.
  Approx. 235,000 visits to Virtual Bartender properties each month.
  Created net new dB of loyal Virtual Bartender Fan Club members that currently has in excess of 200,000 members. (80,000 in first three weeks).

  VB Fan club continues to attract 8,000 – 10,000 new members per month.

  Average length of Visit on our Virtual Bartender properties = 10 minutes.
  The first ‘Fan Site’ appeared within 12 hours. There are thousands of ‘Fan Forums’ all over the world (Holland, Italy, Japan, USA).
  By Day 15, 5.4 Million sessions made Beer.com the #1 fastest growing site in the World as rated by Alexa.com. Hit 10 Million sessions in just 28 days.
  Solidified Beer.com in the #1 rank in Google searches for “beer”.
  Canadian Marketing Association Award.
  Entered into Marketing Sherpa’s 2006 Viral Hall of Fame.
  Best International Viral Award.

  Outcome:

  dthree was awarded an International “Viral Award” by the Viral Awards Committee from London, England and New York City. It has also been judged as an award winning viral campaign and has been written up in publications around the World including Penthouse Australia and Strategy Magazine. It was also entered into the 2006 Marketing Sherpa Viral Hall of Fame.

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