KNOP in North Platte, Nebraska has a unique distinction: it was the only station in the country to air an Old Milwaukee commercial featuring Will Ferrell during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
After airing on KNOP, in the second-smallest market in the country, the ad went viral on Monday, edging out actual Super Bowl ads as the topic of watercooler conversation.
Back in North Platte, KNOP general manger Lewys Carlini thinks the whole thing is a bit strange.
“We found it interesting and odd that they would pick KNOP in North Platte, the second smallest market in the nation, for one spot to run and that’s all that ran,” Carlini said on Monday, “and for it hitting their hopes that it would go viral, and apparently it did.”
Shortly after purchasing Pabst Brewing, which includes the Old Milwaukee brand, in 2010, billionaire Dean C. Metropoulos and his sons, Daren and Evan Metropoulos, signed a deal with Ferrell’s company Funny or Die to create videos featuring the company’s brands, according to BusinessWeek.
While it’s unclear exactly why North Platte was chosen, one factor could have been that Danny Woodhead, the Patriots’ popular running back, grew up in the area.
“The Old Milwaukee campaign featuring Will Ferrell, as a whole, is about paying homage to great Old Milwaukee towns,” Daren and Evan Metropoulos said in a statement on Monday. “North Platte, Neb., is just another one of those towns and what goes better with football than Old Milwaukee beer? The ads with Will Ferrell are extremely popular, which just shows you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to make a big impression.”
Here’s KNOP’s coverage of the Old Milwaukee commercial…
And here’s video of the ad itself…