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Bud.TV isn’t generating the buzz Anheuser-Busch anticipated among their target audience. Seems company execs are going to allow this $20 million project to just die by year’s end if “things don’t change quickly.”For what it’s worth, Anheuser-Bush (Bud’s parent company) is concerned that they aren’t getting the traffic to the site they hoped for. Let me wonder: How could this happen? How can you prevent a similar fate from happening to you and your site (even if you don’t have a $20 mil budget)?

I understand that Bud’s registration efforts were partly to get age verification information prior to site access (sure, a user could lie). However, this is the kind of thing I rant about at every opportunity. Whether you have $2,000 or $20 million: it’s important to understand the audience you’re going after, and what they will and won’t do. What do I mean?

First, a 20-something audience is going to prove tough to get to register unless you’re giving them something they really envy, cherish, must-have, or can’t “scam” some other way. It’s tough enough getting adults to register for something. Other than word-of-mouth, Bud.tv’s landing page offers nothing of real value or interest that would shout “register with me now and you get all this great stuff…”

Let’s face it; these kids know that Bud.TV is a marketing ploy. Get them to hang around, exposed to the brand, and eventually name-recall will play a part in the purchase decision. But Bud.TV has got to be so over-the-top, so important, so new, and so relevant that registration is a no-brainer. But most things like this have a very short shelf-life (remember: Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Same fate for Deal or No Deal). It’s today’s buzz. Tomorrow you’re nothing. There’s gotta be a better way to spend (say it slowly) 20… million… dollars.

One of the very first things to think about is the necessity of a registration requirement in order to access a site or its contents. Is registration put there to prevent underage access (a component in Bud’s case), or perhaps the content is offered on a paid subscription model? More often than not, it’s there because the web site owner wants to collect some data from the web site user; either to measure their efforts, or to create a database to market-back to.

Registration is a difficult thing to force on a web user, to begin with. It conjures-up the thoughts of “why should I register” or “I don ‘t have time right now” or “what personal information are they going to ask me for” or what are they going to do with my information.” On it goes. At least Bud.tv attempts to give a few short answers when you’re signing up. But once you’ve given them your eMail address, username and password, how do you know what else they want from you after you click “next.”

However, whenever you think about “registration” it’s important to understand that big iron gate you might be throwing up with a registration form, and what the consequences might be (i.e. process abandonment, lost opportunity, wasted P4P budgets, etc.)

Bud.tv isn’t the only site holding content behind a registration form. I recently visited the main site for ReMax residential. Quite innocently they let you search for properties by your criteria. After submitting you get a results page, and find thumbnails and teaser information about each property.

Want to see more? Too bad, you have to register!

To me, that’s a huge disappointment. Why should I register with them? They haven’t made it clear? In most cases I can find the same listing for no effort (and no registration) on other sites like realtor.com. Worse yet, ReMax doesn’t even tell me why I need to register; only that they will have the right to follow-up with me (READ: market to me) once I register. Gee, I’m just looking! This kind of thing reminds me of the car salesman who lurks around me on his lot, step by step.

Problem is, users don’t like to be followed unless there is a value exchange (the subject of another story, to come). ReMax (or Bud.tv) hasn’t clearly defined what value they will offer in exchange for information that is readily available elsewhere. Look, here comes the big iron gate! And the result is, some people will register, and some will not. Want to gamble that a qualified buyer is part of the “not?” I don’t.

Since I wasn’t in on the strategy and planning meetings I cannot say for sure, but success (or failure) would have been apparent if Bud’s agency conducted a series of user tests and/or focus groups. Find out if users don’t mind submitting personal information. Learn just how much personal information they will give up. Uncover the threshold between giving them enough information, and too little; the recipe for a successful “value exchange.”

You can never go wrong by deeply researching and understanding your audience. A mechanism such as registration, properly researched and tested, can be most effective when you are aware of the benefits and risks they pose and what your users are willing to accept.

Agree? Disagree? Have a success story? Have a question? Share it with me at: bob_chernet@viewmark.com

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© 2007 Bob Chernet
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