The Challenge
Through social listening, we discovered that music fans can recognize their favorite songs by hearing just one note. The second the song begins to play, they already know what it is. Using this as inspiration, we created the One Second Ads campaign: a series of ads that lasted only one second, featuring first notes from the world's most iconic songs — from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to The Beatles and Foo Fighters. The ads were the perfect length for fans to recognize the songs, and for Budweiser to show it understands these fans. We challenged everyone to guess the songs on social media and prove they were real fans, turning every ad into a real test of fandom. The campaign was so fast that it was not only impossible to skip, but it also triggered people to rewatch every ad over and over again until they guessed all the songs.
The Solution
Since our goal was to reach music fans, our strategy was entirely planned around them. We had dozens of one-second ads featuring different songs from all possible genres. All we had to do was get the right songs to the right fans. Our solution was to air them on TikTok, targeting specific fan profiles strategically. If someone engaged with country music, they saw a country ad. If they preferred pop, they got a pop ad. A rock fan would see a rock ad. And so on. The ads took over social media, and fans quickly started engaging. They watched the ads repeatedly to figure out the songs. Once they cracked them, they commented on their guesses, competing to see who recognized the most tracks — all without skipping a beat.
