A birthday message on Facebook is a nice gesture, but Budweiser wants to make a friend's birthday that much more special with a tasty beverage.
The beer company has launched a Facebook promotion to let users send a Bud or a Bud Light as birthday gift to a friend on the social network. The program will start in limited release on Sept. 9 to folks in Chicago and Denver who are, of course, over the age of 21.
The promotion will soon expand across the country.
"Beer is the original social network. This new campaign focuses not on a gift certificate or credit, but on bringing people together to celebrate life's most anticipated moments," Lucas Herscovici, Anheuser-Busch vice president of consumer connections, said in a press release.
The birthday boy or girl will receive a voucher for the drink at a local bar or restaurant. Gratafy, a mobile gifting service, issues the voucher and no external app is necessary to gift or redeem the Bud beverage. Friends can use the promotion for more than just birthdays, too.
"Whether you're toasting your birthday, a job promotion, an engagement, or simply the end of a long work week, we want to encourage everyone to bridge the physical and digital worlds by allowing you to send your friend a beer over Facebook," Herscovici said.
Gratafy allows users to send their friends more than just a beer at their favorite local haunt. The service is currently available in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Gift recipients simply open the message from their friend and show the server their gift code when they receive their bill.
"Redemption takes place at bars. Upon selecting which bar they'd like to go to redeem their beer, the consumer's name will be entered into the bar's point-of-sale system," Herscovici told USA Today. "Upon arrival at the bar the customer simply has to say, 'I'm paying with Gratafy,' to pick up their beer."
