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Brew 2.0 – Beer and Bloggers
Posted by Rowan Wilkinson on March 21, 2009
As a follow up to my post ‘10 tips for good blogger relations’, I have found a campaign which I feel is a shining example of how best to conduct good blogger relations.
Molson is Canada’s oldest and most successful beer company. In 2008 they decided to launch a blogger relations campaign after recognising that the majority of their customers were online. The aim of the campaign was to connect with social media aficionados and influential bloggers throughout Canada in order to reach a broader customer base and to create more awareness of Molson products.
Their main objective was to build strong personal relationships with key bloggers in the Greater Toronto Area. They identified different groups of bloggers to target including consumer bloggers, lifestyle bloggers, marketing bloggers, food and drink bloggers and bloggers in the ‘magic middle’ that link to the more influential bloggers.
The tactics were to invite a select number of bloggers to an event at the Molson brewery: Brew 2.0. The event would consist of a full tour of the brewery, a food and drink tasting session, a sneak preview of new Molson beers and just a general shindig.
The targeted bloggers were sent e-vites by Molsen’s PR agency who had already built initial relationships with them. They were written in a conversational and personal way in order to make sure the bloggers didn’t think they were being ‘pitched’ anything. Twitter was then used as a follow up to the e-vites as a means to connect and introduce the attendees to each other and to the Molson team.
The event was a great success with all bloggers that attended being sent a complimentary crate of Molson beer the following day. Twitter was again used alongside follow-up emails to thank all of the attendees for coming. Links were placed in Tweets to direct bloggers to pictures and videos of the event which they could use if they wished to write about it.
As a result of the Brew 2.0, Molson was widely written about by bloggers in Canada, the USA and in the UK. It also created a lot of discussion on social network sites such as Twitter. A lot of the coverage was a celebration of Molson beer or a portrayal of Molson as a forward thinking, dynamic company.
What I really liked about this campaign was that there was no ‘pitch’ by Molson. The bloggers were left to write about the company if they wanted to and at no point did Molson apply any pressure to do so.
The campaign was completely built upon the idea of building relationships and that is why it worked. As a result, personal relationships with influential bloggers have been built and perceptions of the company within the blogosphere are favourable.
A campaign like this is beneficial in the long term and is a good example of how to practice blogger relations most effectively.
Additional Information:
March 21st, 2009 at 7:48 am
I really like this campaign. Very simple – just invite the local blogging community for a face to face knees up and show them a good time.
People love writing about good experiences. I’m sure the bloggers weren’t writing about how cool and refreshing the beer was, but who cares. They managed to start a positive conversation about the experience they had with the brand and thats what matters.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It shows that companies are starting to learn the language and to behave in a more human manner. To this point many have talk the talk but have not walk the walk. They have now to learn also to walk the talk. Enough of foolish rhetoric, got to engage, meet people where they are, surprise them, LOVE them!
March 28th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
The emphasized tactics here are: be personal, don’t pitch and create real relationships!Simple and sweet! I quite like this example as well. I’m sure this created so much buzz, and of course good will that will come in very handy for Molson’s future campaigns.