Workout With Captain Morgan

Captain Morgan provides irrefutable proof that laughter and rum are the best ways to stay fit and healthy.

Via - YouTube

Heineken Demonstrates Effective Lightheartedness (Again)

Heineken - unlike so many SA commercials in the beer category - understands so well that brands operating in this category needn't be overly deep and inspirational to be successful and well liked by consumers.

Below is yet another fantastic demonstration of the power of engaging and entertaining your audience!

Via - YouTube

Absolut App Driven By QR

Absolut, the premium vodka brand, has introduced a neck collar incorporating Quick Response (QR) technology, in a bid to distribute its Drinkspiration app to consumers.


Launched in 2009, Absolut Drinkspiration combines mobile technology with social media interaction and user generated content. It is an encyclopaedia of illustrated recipes that allows users to browse drink recipes or receive personalised recommendations based on a variety of preferences such as desired taste, colour, spirit, time of the day, weather, bar vibe, or what is popular.

The initial drive will see QR-tagged neck collars on 200,000 bottles of Absolut and Absolut Naturals in the UK, which will allow iPhone users to download the application instantly and free of charge just by hovering their mobiles over the code.

Via - Marketing Magazine UK

Heineken Retails Whilst Social Networking

Heineken has consolidated it's online presence on Facebook and YouTube and aims to use it's fan base of a million or so Facebook users to sell merchandise directly from the social networking site.

Over and above Heineken branded clothing and other merchandise, the brand will also encourage users to suggest what the brand should offer, making for a more immersive and collaborative experience

Heineken is current finalising plans to standardise its branding globally, too. Having altered its logo design, including moving the star to above the centre of the word 'Heineken', it is now rolling out standardised bottle and can designs to ensure consistency where ever you might be.

Via - Brand Republic Marketing

Premium Lounge The Aston Martin Way

Aston Martin has opened a by-invitations only club at The Prime Society in Singapore's Dempsey Hill neighborhood.


The lounge features custom tables made from authentic Aston Martin wheel-rims as well as large prints of a variety of Aston Martin cars. Elsewhere you’ll find martini glasses named after some of the marque's most famous models and private lockers where members can lock away their personal belongings.

The lounge has also partnered with premium liquor brands such as the Bollinger champagne house (a first in Singapore) while Macallan is the signature whisky at the venue.

Via - Aston Martin Club

Wine for Homosexual Men

There seems to be a growing number of brands targeting the lucrative gay consumer market, a trend that has been exemplified by certain bespoke services that target the gay consumer directly. In recent years we have seen a banking service, hotels, wedding boutiques, restaurants and travel websites specifically target gay consumers. The recent addition to this growing trend is the introduction of a Spanish wine, specifically marketed to homosexual men. UO! is a new brand of wine created with gay men in mind, with the packaging and website imagery tailored accordingly.

The winemakers describe their offering by defining the Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo as a blend, featuring earth tones and "wisps of flowers and fruit – the perfect accompaniment to a gathering of friends on a hot day, whether the heat comes from within or without." Antinoo, meanwhile, is a Monastrell that's "young and mature, fruity, elegant, smooth…Mediterranean.... When you try it, shut your eyes and imagine that you are licking rivulets of syrup from his body.” This is merely one example of a niche brand that has decided to targeted the growing homosexual market, and has done so successfully.

via:springwise.com

Brand History Made Interesting

Johnnie Walker's latest viral effort is a fantastic example of the power of a simple idea coupled with consistent brand messaging can be so compelling.

Beautifully written and executed in one single shot lasting around 6 minutes by BBH London and starring Robert Carlyle, this is one history lesson you'd willingly sit through again and again.

Via - Campaign Live

Smooth Orginals

As part of Stella Artois' campaign promoting a new 4% strength beer, the brand has created a series of short films satirising contemporary and popular US TV shows and movies.


The Stella Artois 4% Smooth Originals website features titles such as "8 Kilometres", "Dial Hard" and "24 Hours", bringing to viewers the "true original" stories, before they were tainted by Hollywood. Nice supporting elements such as the original movie posters and other downloads are also available on the site.


Each spot directs users to the Stella Artois website where they can watch extended versions of the clips. Contagious Magazine also reports that the campaign will extend to takeovers of popular web portals such as MSN and GQ.

The campaign illustrates how content can be best used to attract consumers to interact with your brand - and how entertainment and a sense of value-add for the end user is so much more important than taking your brand too seriously.

Via: Contagious Magazine

Kahlua Tries To Save Some Holiday Parties

With so many companies having to cancel their Christmas parties this year due to the negative economic downturn, it was only a matter of time before a big brand stepped up in attempts to stand out.


Kahlua has launched a campaign for all companies eligible in 5 States in the US in their attempt to help save some holiday parties. The brand is offering five $10,000 prizes to five small businesses that have had to cancel their holiday parties and interested companies can apply online at KahluaSavesTheHolidayParty.com.

Via: Luxist

Whiskey Ad Literally Speaks To Consumers

Beginning on Dec. 4, Jameson's Whiskey will launch an outdoor projection-media campaign in high-traffic areas where many of Jameson's target consumers will be out and about, around restaurants and bars.
The interesting angle to this outdoor campaign is the seemingly live interaction the billboards will have with potential consumers. AdAge reports that the projected screens will look as if someone is typing out messages to passers-by, even though most of the communications have been scripted and automatically programmed on a seven- to 10-minute looping movie file. In New York and Los Angeles, however, a copywriter will actually type out messages in real time via a laptop to interact with those near the projection.

It sounds like it could potentially be a very fun campaign, especially for the copywriters who are typing live and interacting with passers-by. The campaign is set to launch in New York, where it will run for three nights before touring the rest of the US for the remainder of December.

Via: AdAge

Jameson Cult Film Clubs

Jameson is no longer just about making whiskey. The UK arm of the brand has recently launched a branded club known as the Jameson Cult Film Club.

The club will host a monthly screening of classic films at six venues around the country, the first of which will be seen by the public at the end of November. The selected screened films will be chosen by popular vote of fans who have signed up on the jamesoncultfilmclub.com.

The Australian representatives of the Jameson brand have gone one step further. They have launched their own production company known as John Jameson Productions. The company has already produced 3 indie-films, all with whiskey as the central theme.

Via: Brand News, Jameson Cult Film Club

Nervous Investors Turn To The Bottle

London's most famous wine merchant, Berry Bros. & Rudd, had one of the best weeks in its 310-year history.

At a time when global markets are tumbling, it seems as though investors are looking to put their money into safer forms of investment. For many, this translates to vintage wines.

BBR has sold around £60.5 million-worth of wine since April, it saw business surge by more than 20% over the same period last year.

It seems everyone selling bespoke wines are winning. Auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's (BID) also saw strong sales last week. Last week, Christie's sold £1.65 million worth of claret and Burgundy in just two days, with the 2000 vintage of Chateau Lafite-Roshchild fetching the equivalent of £910 a bottle.

London's Telegraph states: "Live-ex, a research company that runs a fine-wine index, estimates that prices of the best vintages have increased by 50% since the start of last year – in sharp contrast to the stock market, where prices have fallen by 15%."

How To Make Money Off Free iPhone Games

Illusion Labs was started a year ago by Carl Loodberg and Andreas Alptun, who had worked together at another Swedish company called TAT, designing software for companies including Samsung and Nvidia.

The first game they developed has become one of the most popular pieces of software for the iPhone. The game is called Labyrinth, a digital update to the old wooden box on which you maneuver a small silver ball through a maze while avoiding cut-out holes the ball could plunge into. The game, which is available for free from Apple's iTunes, is being downloaded 80,000 times a day to date.

Illusion Labs has now designed a game called iPint for Carling beer, with the London-based ad agency Beattie McGuiness Bungay. In iPint, an iPhone user tilts her phone to guide a beer down a bar through a variety of obstacles and into a waiting hand. Once the beer arrives at its destination, the screen changes into a pint glass with Carling's logo on it. It then fills up with a virtual beer, which disappears when the phone is tilted to simulate drinking from a glass.

Whilst no detail has been released on how much the company was paid for the development of this application, it does open up an exciting new channel and offers insights into other innovative ways for software developers to monetise their skills in a fun and meaningful way.

Via: BusinessWeek

Absolut Gay Pride

Absolut Vodka is a brand that believes in the importance of encouraging people to be proud of who they are. 30 years ago, when the company began their support for the individual’s rights, they were considered by many to be too bold.

This philosophy, combined with a sense of innovation for which the company has always strived for resulted in 311,000 Special Edition "Absolut Color" rainbow bottles in their show of support for the gay and lesbian community being launched last month.

Along with some of the bottle is a limited edition cocktail book about preparing cocktails with the rainbow, with all of the recipes being based on six colours of the rainbow flag.

via:BrandNews

More From The Absolut World

A really pretty TVC highlighting the intrinsics of Absolut Vodka. Apparently, the live action portion of the liquid was done with a vodka-filled balloon blow-darted at 8000fps. And in order to render the three layers of glass in the bottle, the studio bought 10 new 64bit, 16GB Ram Renderboxes. Watch all the technical wizardry come to life below.

Free Cash In An Absolut World

Absolut Vodka's latest campaign called "In an Absolut world" has taken the Free Economy to the next level.

In Berlin, the vodka giants introduced Absolut ATM's which gave away FREE CASH during a very happy hour.

In total, 12,000 Euro were given away for free. For their return on investment, Absolut Vodka recieved huge amounts of news coverage in TV, press, online and by word of mouth. It is estimated that the witty campaign generated more than 1.5 million media contacts.

Wouldn't bet on this campaign being extended to South Africa, sadly.


link

Bud Tells You What Kind of Dude You Are

In my opinion, the only thing more refreshing than a cold beer on a hot day is the notion of a beer brand not taking itself too seriously. Communications that tell me about a beer brand keeping their promise (whatever that promise is) since sometime in the late 1800's really doesn't mean all that much to me, personally.

Onto much more engaging beer category communications news though, it seems Bud Light have been at it again. In a new campaign that once again unashamedly targets the male demographic, Dude Madness is a campaign that's rather funny with a great online element that allows you to determine, once and for all, what kind of "dude" you are, as well as providing for you to spread the word among your friends.

Below is one of the TV ads:

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

Wine Tryvertisng

Springwise points us to an innovation in the wine industry in their attempts at appealing to the less knowledgeable of wine appreciators.

People who are not too well informed of the right year or region now have the ability to sample a selection of fine wines before actually shelling out a small fortune for that special occasion. WineSide has come up with the novel approach of offering wines packaged in sample size tubes. The French company offers both sweet and classic wines in patented, flat-base glass tubes with screw tops carefully engineered to protect the flavours of the wine.

A small and easy to transport sample of what the wine tastes like is a nice idea in theory, but I wonder if this would encourage those who enjoy drinking a little too much?

Personalise Your Gift

Pernod Ricard USA are bringing new levels of personalisation to their product offerings.

By logging a special site called “YourGiftLabel.com”, buyers are able to customise lavels with various personalised text and backgrounds. They will then print your personal message on authentic labels for Chivas Regal, The Glenlivet, Jacob’s Creek, Kahlua, Mumm Napa and Wild Turkey Russell’s Reserve bottles for free.

The labels are said to be of high quality and would no doubt allow you to create distinctive and memorable presents for the lucky recipients.

Some More Artvertising

1800 Tequila has developed an advertising campaign where nine artists from around the world were commissioned to design collectible limited edition bottles of the tequila; the bottle designs are also being displayed on billboards across several US cities.

Another element of this latest promotion has also been put together where people will be able to submit their own bottle artwork and design their own sneakers.

Check out their site with the full gallery of the artworks by clicking here.