Sierra Nevada Is Brewing A CTV Strategy – But Without Video

August 27, 2024

As seen on AdExchanger

Sierra Nevada is one of the largest independent craft breweries in the US.

But it wants consumers to know that it’s still a family-owned-and-operated business. And so Sierra Nevada has been reframing its brand marketing around that theme.

To drive awareness of the brand refresh, Sierra Nevada knew it needed to run ads on connected TV because of its mass reach, said Catherine Gilham, group director of media and investment at Media Matters Worldwide, Sierra Nevada’s media agency.

There was a problem, though: Sierra Nevada didn’t have the time or resources for a lengthy production shoot.

Sierra Nevada brews new commercials

To help the brand prepare a streaming campaign quickly and cheaply, Media Matters tapped ad platform Kargo, which specializes in content overlays, including a new connected TV ad unit called Narrative that the company made generally available on Tuesday.

Narrative quickly generates streaming TV commercials for brands that don’t want to spend potentially millions on production costs.

But there’s a catch.

Unlike classic 15- and 30-second spots, Kargo’s Narrative ad unit isn’t a traditional video asset. It looks more like a slideshow or collage of high-quality brand and product images with an audio overlay.

Advertisers can generate 15-second spots using images they have on-hand from their website or brochures, for example. They can also choose from an array of AI-generated voices with different intonations or accents to read the ad copy in an audio overlay.

In Sierra Nevada’s case, it combined new, professional photos it took for this campaign with an audio overlay of its brand messaging and its new tagline: “Still family owned, operated & argued over.”

Gilham said she was worried at first that Narrative “wouldn’t have the look, feel and polish of a produced spot.”

But the unit resembles 15-second spots closely enough in the ways that matter to brands, she said, noting that it looks like a professionally produced asset that’s high quality enough to run within a CTV ad pod – even if it’s not technically “video.”

Sierra Nevada hops into CTV

Narrative also helps lower the barrier of entry to CTV for advertisers, said Kargo Founder and CEO Harry Kargman, because they can apply digital-style targeting onto TV without the exorbitant costs of commercial production.

For example, advertisers are able to match their first-party data with viewing data from the TV and streaming publishers Kargo is integrated with, such as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), AMC, Univision and NBCUniversal. There’s also the option to use third-party data within the demand-side platforms Kargo works with, including The Trade Desk, Amazon’s DSP and Google’s DV360.

With its campaign, Sierra Nevada’s main goal is to raise brand awareness, especially in newer markets beyond the company’s California headquarters, where consumers may be less exposed to the brand.

It’s measuring its Kargo ads based on awareness, brand lift, brand perception and the downstream effect on sales. Media Matters is using that information to optimize Sierra Nevada’s spend by shifting more budget to the specific networks and publishers that appear to be generating the strongest results.

Agencies can “cherry pick” premium publishers within Kargo’s network, Gilham said, which is a level of control most buyers want. Sierra Nevada is running its Kargo Narrative ads on networks and services such as Paramount, Tubi, AMC and WBD, to name a few.

So far, Sierra Nevada’s Narrative ads are helping lift brand awareness, Gilham said, which is the ultimate goal for this campaign.

Kargo hopes cost-effective ad production will help woo other brands into spending more money on streaming – especially the smaller players.

More small and midsize marketers will try CTV for the first time if they can do it affordably, Kargman said.