Guinness Viral

Thanks to Nigel for this!

Guinness Passport to Greatness

From the Publicis Contagious Newsletter:

"Traveling abroad can be tricky; coping with language barriers and jet lag puts us in a state of almost constant confusion. When touring for sporting events, these effects can be multiplied, thanks to the heady potential of victory -or dramatic failure - mixed with alcohol and adrenalin.

In a nifty and insightful campaign to mark its sponsorship as the official beer of the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament, Guinness, through OgilvyOne Worldwide, Hong Kong, has launched a mobile application to help the estimated 20,000 overseas visitors to navigate the city and cope with the language barrier.

The campaign, supported by mobile experts the Hyperfactory and mobile city and phrasebook creators XS2TheWorld, offers a ‘passport to greatness’ containing useful information about the tournament to be accessed via mobile. Fans can use their mobiles to discover match schedules, team selections, stadium information and a city guide to Hong Kong, as well as reviews of matches and maps, with locations of Guinness-serving establishments highlighted.

But all that is nothing compared to the application’s top feature, broadcasting key phrases in Cantonese through mobile handsets’ loudspeakers, to help visitors make themselves understood. The pre-progammed phrases include asking for numerous addresses around the city, including key stadium locations, directions to ATMs, and, of course, another round of Guinness please.

The passport can be downloaded from www.guinness.com.hk/xtra and then Hong Kong is your oyster."

Guinness special edition

Brilliant Guinness Responsible Drinking Campaign

Genius.

Guinness is so well balanced

From Scaryideas

Guinness is just so well balanced... 3 pints of Guinness is the perfect amount.




You can see from the related articles that Guinness has got a lot of love.

Guinness Wholegrain Bread

More marketing innovation from Guinness. Previously we showed Guinness Marmite, the Guinness rugby chair, Guinness Hands, their awesomely clever anamorphic coasters, Guinness Red, their partnership with Le cool and the Guinness blog... now we've got Guinness Wholegrain Bread!

It's been much anticipated but now it's here. From Snackspot:

"Ah thinks the Kaptain, the moanses you told the Snacking Spot of the lack of sightings in the homeland has instead yielded a new reward for the Kaptain. He brings you the Guinness Wholegrain Bread, brew baked in the Northern Ireland by Irwin's bakery. Sampling the bread the Kaptain was rewarded with delicious malty whole wheat tasting trembles. The alkyhols sacrificed in the heats of the oven flames, but the malty beer stenches remaining. The Kaptain wonders if the komarades on foreign shores will enjoy its tastes, he hopes so, he hopes so very much."

"Produced at Irwin's Portadown bakery the bread has an authentic 17 per cent real Guinness content - giving it a richly dark appearance and the unmistakable malty taste of the beer."

Apparently it tastes like dark soda bread and can be bought in Waitrose. Some of the comments also point to the existence of Guinness fudge, which sounds like it didn't go down too well!

To find out more about it read this article from the Irish Times.

It seems that Guinness have updated their thinking and are leveraging their powerful platform with some Marketing Innovation a la John Grant. It's a great way of super charing your brand.

Guinness + le cool

Guinness are the first brand to advertise on le cool London's weekly newsletter. It's OK, but isn't contextual and only links through to their brand site. There's a much bigger opportunity to create ads that mean something given their context and that tie into events that are listed.

It shows that Guinness are on the front foot and have strong forward momentum.

Guinness overload: the blog

The clever chaps at Guinness have got a blog to support their work in the UK. It's a great way for them to support their brand activity and generate buzz and build a community.

It's from here for instance that they launched Guinness Red in selected bars around the country - giving the participating bars publicity and extra footfall.

It's a great piece of communication and should be an important component of any brand's activity.

Here's what they have to say Guinness Red:

"For more than 2 years we have beavering away on our newest baby - Guinness Red and it is fantastic to be able to finally set it loose on you all!

As you may have seen over the last week we have started to install Guinness Red in pubs all over the country and we will be continuing more of the same for the next week or so until we are in over 140 pubs from Bournemouth to Aberdeen and Cardiff to Newcastle.

Because it is only a test at this stage (we are keen to see what everyone thinks of it first before launching it fully) we are in a small number of outlets - 141. So far, it is available in all 71 O'Neill's"

Guinness Chair for London Irish

Guinness have continued their brand innovation policy by launching a "Guinness Chair". The chair is designed to offer London Irish supporters the ultimate rugby watching chair at their ground. They've timed it perfectly to conincide with the 6 Nations using England captain Phil Vickery to promote it in London's Metro newspaper.

This is hot on the heals of the Guinness Marmite launch last week and maintains Guinness's momentum and enforces their brand energy. Apparently Guinness Red is about to be launched too. People are talking about Guinness and thanks to the strenght of their partnerships and the fact that they are constantly fresh and in beta.

New Guinness Ad

I like it. It's worth talking about.

tiaw ohw esoht ot emoc sgniht dooG: ssenniuG

Hats off.

From Flickr.