Beverages

n this week's PERSUASION column, How green is your beer? Simon examines how Canadian beer companies are jumping on the environmental band wagon.


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What makes a good product site – one that you'd like to emulate for your own brand, that stays with you even when you've shed your marketer's hat and donned your consumer one? Is it a beautiful design? Flawless functionality? Or is it the experience?

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In this week's PERSUASION column, How about a history lesson with that lager?, Simon Houpt looks at Canada's long standing history with breweries and how integral it is to marketing a beer.


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In this week's Adhocracy column, Beyond the bottle: Coke trumpets its green initiatives, Simon Houpt looks at how Coca Cola has been quietly contributing to community environmental projects.


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BY DIANNE NICE
THE GLOBE AND MAIL

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What Toyota can learn from Tiger
Taking a page from the Tiger Woods Book of Damage Control, Saatchi & Saatchi has advised Toyota to put a sock in it when it comes to its public image problems. The agency says it's confident Toyota can eventually make a comeback, just like Mr. Woods is planning to do Friday, with his first public statement since news of his philandering caused him to put his golf career on hold in December. In the meantime, Saatchi & Saatchi has suggested the recall-plagued auto maker turn off the ad valve while it focuses on fixing its vehicles and not say anything until it has something good to say.


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The Globe's marketing and advertising reporter, Simon Houpt, explores why some ads are drool worthy while others fall short. He looks at several spots that have set out to stir up Canadian patriotism and why some were runaway successes and others, not so much. Newly released Ipso Reid research "...suggested that combining nationalism with shilling can prove a challenging alchemy," says Houpt.


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A weekly compendium of interesting items from the world of media, marketing and advertising.


THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Globe and Mail reporter Siri Agrell spearheaded this little diddy, writing lyrics for a song about the woes of print media -- essentially, our very own complaint choir. She ventured, video camera in hand, to Lucas Marchand's home, who is vocalist with capella quartet The Fine Grind, to record this rendition of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy."

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Because it's Friday, something fun. And also because, hey, who doesn't like hamsters?



The video is part of a larger campaign for Drench, a bottled water that "comes from a spring deep within the rolling hills of Yorkshire."

The company's website invites you to "meet the band," and watch videos of hamster hopefuls who auditioned, but didn't quite make the cut.

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Because it's still Friday, something frosty. As in cold and refreshing.

In a piece that appeared on AdAge.com earlier this week, the trade mag summarizes findings from a new study by Mindset Media.

The research firm, which specializes in psychographics, "interviewed more than 2,600 people online in August and September and found specific personalities and mind-sets 'popped' for more than half a dozen branded beer choices."

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Embracing the future or just jumping on the bandwagon?

Ad Age reports that PepsiCo's Mountain Dew "will hand off marketing duties, at least temporarily, for a $100 million-plus business to several potentially unknown players selected by consumers."

It's a brassy move. Essentially, the brand plans to crowdsource the decision about who provides creative and production for three new line extensions: Distortion, Whiteout and Typhoon.

"Digital advertising and point-of-sale materials could also become a part of the mix," Ad Age notes. "Once the flavors and advertising break in April 2010, consumers will vote to determine which flavor will become a permanent part of the...line-up."

So will it work?

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Most consumers come across a milk carton during the course of a day, whether on the breakfast table, in a grocery store aisle or in a school lunchroom. It's only natural then, for marketers to want to capitalize on this access to deliver a brand message.

While not new, the practice has been revived thanks in part to the rise of companies that specialize in milk carton advertising.

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HOW THIN-SKINNED ARE TORONTONIANS? Three months ago, Molson Coors Brewing put up a billboard announcing that its Coors Light beer was "Colder than most people from Toronto." But after a Toronto newspaper ran a story on the ad this week, prompting a flurry of online carping, the brewer apologized and pledged to take down the offending creative. At least one Twittering Torontonian shrugged off the brew-ha-ha (sorry, we couldn't resist), tweeting, "We're not offended that you called us cold. We're offended that you suggested we'd drink Coors."

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