Beef industry brings 2-hour sizzling meat video to the big screen

Dive Brief:

• Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner., the beef industry platform supported by the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, released a two-hour long video of a prime rib roast slowly cooking over an open flame​ as part of its holiday marketing push, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. 
• Tittled “Drool Log” — a pun on seasonal Yule Logs — the feature-length YouTube video has no script, save for a brief bit of voice-over upfront that notes the video is two hours and mentions the “Beef. It’s what for dinner.” tagline. Clipped versions of the creative will be promoted digitally via Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.   
• “Drool Log” will also be screened at select movie theaters in 10 states for a limited run between Nov. 22 and Dec. 5. The “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” campaign was originally launched in 1992 by the Beef Industry Council, working with ad agency Leo Burnett and featuring legendary actor Robert Mitchum as the first narrator. The tag line evolved over time, at one point becoming “Beef. Real food for real people.” But “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” returned in 1999, with actor Sam Elliott narrating.

Dive Insight:

The beef industry has explored experimental videos squarely focused on meat cooking before as part of its “Keep Sizzlin'” advertising platform, including through a considerably shorter “Train of Thought” video that has garnered over 2.5 million YouTube hits since May.

“Drool Log” shows the group broadening its ambitions to the big screen, attempting to capitalize on consumer curiosity for off-kilter brand marketing and trends like autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR — a pleasant, tingling sensation triggered by certain repetitive sounds, like sizzling, that has developed into its own subgenre of YouTube content. 

The video is timed around a key business period as families and friends settle in for large meals around the holidays. About 60% of annual roast sales occur in December, according to a press release from the group. The creative parodies Yule Log videos some people put on in place of actually having logs burning in a fireplace.     

Other brands have jumped on the ASMR train with similar campaigns. Last year, restaurant chain Applebee’s released an hour-long video that soley shows various meats sizzling on a grill. Reese’s Canadian arm this year also released a branded feature-length film starring five “ASMRtists,” or online influencers who specialize in creating that sensory experience. “Reese: The Movie” is available on YouTube and the local streaming service Crave. 

Unusual spins on Yule Log videos have also become a marketing trend of late: Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice brand in 2017 dropped a chaotic hour-long video in which a Yule Log continuously explodes, interrupted by occasional messages from spokesperson Terry Crews.