Courvoisier Mingle Now

Courvoisier have used the Mingle Now platform as a way of launching their sweepstake to win VIP tickets to 2007's hottest Music Awards Show in the States. It's a great example of how to embrace social networks, especially ones that are built for LDA+ consumers.

Love Film's Clever Targeting

I am a very happy user of Love Film (like Netflix but UK based) and was really intrigued when my square Love Film parcel arrived earlier this week. It was bulging with what turned out to be a sample of Cadbury's Bournville chocolate. What a clever way of doing targeted sampling. They obviously knew from my choice of Grand Designs Series 2 Disc A that I had ordered this DVD for my girlfriend... girlfriend's and girls love chocolate. Genius.

I wonder if this would work for some of our brands. You can tailor the brand used for sampling by person, film, film choice history and a whole host of factors. It's not intrusive and offers something unexpected and useful. For instance, Apple Sourz has a link to both Scrubs and Sex and the City through the Appletini...

See the evidence below.

Verve Champagne Bucket Chair

From Not Cot:

"On sleek furniture designs… i fell for the Karim Rashid Veuve Clicquot Loveseat this morning over at Luxist. There’s something about the infinite curves, yet a nice separation of space (with a bottle of bubbly as the border?) that's enticing, and the photography for the piece is beautifully surreal."





Great design. Something worth talking about. Great site from Verve as well. We should be doing things like this for our luxury brands/upper marques and ensure they are featured on sites like This Next and Luxist.

Stella challice goes down badly

It only has a few members but this facebook group is making its voice heard. They simply don't like the new style glass. Apparently it look effeminate and not like the manly old "baseball bat" design.

"The new "chalice" Stella glass is ruining the noble art of drinking Stella. Why mess with a winning formula? The previous "baseball bat" design was functional and far more appropriate. The new glass is camp and makes you want to drink cooking lager."

I wonder how seriously the guys at Stella will take this.

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.

I love Jaegermeister Society

Ages ago I wrote something pretty boring about Facebook and how it's useful etc. Blah, blah, blah.

In the spirit of show, not tell here some more stuff that hopefully illustrates the point rather than making me have to write about it.

This Facebook group has 684 members who all love doing Jaegerbombs. They are mainly from Cape Town and Jo'burg and are basically super charged brand enthusiasts unwittingly doing a great marketing job for whoever sells Jaegermeister and Red Bull in SA. Drinking solutions, market research, sales drives, word of mouth, PR and brand ambassadors. Not sure you need much else. They are even making their own adverts!









Compliant? Debatable.

Effective? No question!

Let go of your brand. Let it be hijacked. Team up with a suitable partner (Red Bull), identify specific groups of people. And watch your brand take off.

I love Canadian Whisky Tshirt

Looks like Canadian whisky does have a younger, more webby fan base than people thought.

Recommended, again, on This Next.



Could be a good way to Disccover Canadian Club.