Bud Light building secret city

Bud Light, the AB InBev beer brand popular in the US, is reportedly building a secret city as part of its latest advertising campaign.

The ‘city’ even has a mayor, who has been drafted in to promote the Whatever USA campaign

The Whatever USA campaign is a social media push that is encouraging consumers to send in clips of themselves auditioning to be one of the 1,000 people invited to a town of the company’s creation for the first weekend in September.

So far, details of the location of the Bud Light town, or even what it will feature, are being kept under wraps in order to stir up interest and cause a buzz among the brand’s target audience of online-savvy millennials.

With a three-pronged approach incorporating TV, social media and the on-trade, Bud Light has already auditioned more than 150,000 people according to brand director David Daniels.

“With more than 150,000 auditions collected, we know the campaign is resonating with beer drinkers everywhere,” said Daniels at a recent press event.

“What’s to come during our #UpForWhatever weekend at Whatever, USA is going to be off the charts,” he said.

The mammoth campaign led Daniels to describe it to Adweek magazine as “content marketing on steroids.”

And according to the company the campaign is reaching 50% of 21- to 27-year-olds each week through social media.

Bud Light is also working with the satirical news site The Onion to produce fake local news from the town, and with BuzzFeed to come up with sharable lists, according to Business Insider.