Backward to Basics
Dates, after all, should be intimate affairs.
Six years ago, when Miller Brewing Co. launched Blind Date — a sweepstakes awarding 500 winners a trip and concert with an unidentified, nationally known band — the idea was to create a local event to click with hip twenty-somethings.
“It was simply a promotion people could find out about at a bar or on the radio,” says Barry Marek, director of brand promotions. “But then we decided it was a good opportunity to sell beer, and we expanded it at retail.”
That and other changes (such as holding one national concert rather than several regional events) “watered it down,” Marek says. “We started to get away from the basic concept that made it so strong in the first place.”
Last year’s attempt to energize the concept, by staging the mystery concert “somewhere” in the Bermuda Triangle, was scuttled by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has yet to be rescheduled.
The concept will be tweaked again this year, as Miller plays up the location — the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas — for the first time. GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI, handles execution; Zipatoni, St. Louis, takes care of creative.
“We’re going to see how this works,” says Marek. “If we can’t figure it out, maybe it is time to put it to rest.”
Meanwhile, Milwaukee-based Miller is brewing a new musical experience called The Rellim Tour: A View from the Inside. Launched in March, the four-month campaign is designed to turn the concert-going experience “inside out” (as it spells the brand name backwards) by providing a view from backstage. The tour is produced by Clear Channel Entertainment, New York City.
Attendees enter concert venues through a side door and walk through a fake dressing room to reach the “green room” where the concerts are held.
“Our objective now is to develop a different concert-going experience and to use up-and-coming bands as opposed to super-star bands,” says Steve Lauletta, Miller’s director of sports and event marketing. “We have talked to our consumers. They want to tap into live music in a different way.”
The tour’s three legs send a pair of emerging bands (including Daysleeper, Tantric, and Trik Turner) to 19 markets for staggered performances in the same club. The bands walk through the crowd to reach the stage and often will later mingle with the 500 to 1,000 attendees. “You have all of those kinds of things you don’t normally get at a show,” Lauletta says.
Radio stations in Clear Channel’s network give away tickets and host contests awarding two winners and guests in each market a true backstage experience: a ride to the show in the tour bus, a seat at the sound check, and a video camera they can use to interview band members.
“We wanted to create a unique, proprietary program that could be Miller’s platform,” says Darin Wolf, vp-alliance marketing, Clear Channel.
In addition to DJ endorsements and information on radio station Web sites, the campaign is supported by off-premise P-O-P and some print advertising. Clear Channel’s promotion arm, East Rutherford, NJ-based CMI, handles.
