In 2011 and 2012, Will Ferrell did a series of advertisements for Old Milwaukee Beer. All of the spots only aired locally in small markets, mainly the ones in which they were filmed. But the ads caught fire online, which was surely the point all along.
The first of the advertisements appeared in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois. And they had all been filmed there in Davenport.
In one, Ferrell fishes along the Mississippi River, explaining that “when I’m not too busy being a big-time Hollywood phoney,” he likes to come out to Davenport, wet a line, and drink some Old Milwaukee.
Ferrell and Old Milwaukee followed up those Davenport spots with a 2012 Super Bowl ad. But instead of paying tens of millions for the ad space in the national broadcast, Old Milwaukee only ponied up 1500 bucks to get it on the air in North Platte, Nebraska. There, it was seen on the 15,180 television sets watching the game. But it quickly went viral, making it a major coup for the brand.
Ferrell made another series of ads in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Stockholm, Sweden (his wife, Viveca Paulin, is Swedish, so maybe this explains the latter locale).
And, in 2013, Old Milwaukee and Ferrell produced another Super Bowl ad, this one only appearing in three markets: Sherman, Texas; Ardmore, Oklahoma; and Glendive, Montana. As you can imagine, the simultaneous online release of the spot once again generated a ton of buzz.
Reportedly, Ferrell, who did not get paid for the ads, was the one who came up with the idea. As Daren Metropolous, co-owner of Pabst Brewing Co., which owns Old Milwaukee, explained at the time, “Will Ferrell approached Old Milwaukee about creating ads because he’s a big fan of the brand. We gave him the freedom to pursue his creative vision and produce these spots with a local vibe.”
