Blinded by the Date

I have already been a winner. Last month I traveled with the 1,000 winners of Miller Brewing Co.’s fifth annual MGD Blind Date sweepstakes. The concert was at Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas — the “mystery location” flaunted in 2001’s Blind Date in the Bermuda Triangle campaign.

Those winners, whose October 2001 trip was postponed by Sept. 11 events, traveled with the 2002 winners and a few hundred corporate and distributor staffers who won sales contests. It was a mixed crowd — plenty of the 21- to 28-year-olds that Miller covets, plus an older, grayer contingency with loads of tattoos and brand new passports. The band was — well, either you already know, or you’ll find out later.

That’s the hook for Blind Date: The band is a mystery until they step on stage. Supposedly. DJs and music critics love to unveil the band and scoop Miller, and speculation was rife at Atlantis’ welcome-night buffet. Aerosmith. Incubus. Third Eye Blind. Elton John and Billy Joel (together). It’s tough to keep secret — especially this year, when band members kept showing up in Atlantis’ casino. While rumors fly, Miller and agency GMR Marketing (which negotiates band deals months in advance) stay mum.

“We neither confirm or deny,” says GMR vp-entertainment marketing Paul Wehrley. “It helps fuel the disinformation.”

Speculation hypes Blind Date, but sometimes raises expectations too high. The 1999 Dublin locale made fans assume they’d hear U2; when Smashing Pumpkins hit the stage, many were disappointed.

Is it better to announce the band? That’s what Anheuser-Busch did this fall with 1 Night Stand, a 12-city tour of small venues by Nickelback. Radio station partners in each city give away tickets to private concerts in what A-B calls “up-close venues.” (Miller folks shrug that the tour — similar to early Blind Date gigs, down to the “Big Bands. Small Venues” format — is flattering.)

Miller names the band, too, in its Rellim Tour, whose second flight was cancelled last month after the lead singer of headline band Filter checked into rehab. Miller had concerts planned in 11 cities, following a 20-city push with Tantric in March and Trick Turner in April. Rellim dresses venues like backstage so fans share pizza and videogames with band members. “You give them free pizza and it’s like you gave them a car,” says Miller manager of entertainment marketing Peter Laatz.

Flying blind

Give them a trip to the Bahamas and they’ll happily drink your beer there. But non-MGD fans are worth hosting, too: “They’ll sample it, and tell friends they had this great trip,” says Jake Lauletta, Miller director of sports and event marketing. Most trips go through radio stations or on-premise events; some are won online. It’s the off-premise tearpads that bring older players, says Lauletta, but Miller won’t cut those: “We implement a program all the way across the board.”

Still, after this 24th concert, Blind Date may need to scale back. “We took a good idea and made it bigger, and got outside our demographic,” says Lauletta. “With this age, bigger isn’t necessarily better.”

Miller may bring Blind Date back to local shows to better target twenty somethings in select venues. (It could also spend less on travel, more on talent — Blind Date’s top two costs, respectively.) Meanwhile, the Rellim Tour will woo local clubgoers, selling some tickets and awarding others through radio stations and bars. (Free tickets last spring prompted too many no-shows.) Rellim plans aren’t set for 2003. Clear Channel Communications, San Antonio, TX, handles concerts and station tie-ins.

Private concerts are “mostly an image thing, to associate with a band that’s cool to younger consumers,” says John Rodwan, editorial director for Beverage Marketing Corp. It seems Miller has had trouble skewing down to younger consumers, says Rodwan, especially with Miller Lite, whose 0.9-percent volume decline (to 16.1 million barrels for 2001) belies strong growth for other light brands, including Coors and Bud (up 8.2% to 34.8 million barrels). Miller’s total sales are down 2.5 percent to 39.6 million barrels, while A-B rose 1.3 percent to 99.5 million barrels, per Beverage Marketing. MGD fell 3.6 percent to 5.4 million barrels; Budweiser dropped 4.6 percent to 32.8 million barrels.

U.S. beer sales should hit $33.4 billion by 2006, up nine percent from $30.7 billion last year, projects New York City-based Beverage Marketing. (Beer’s share of the multiple-beverage marketplace will hold steady at 11.7 to 11.8 percent.)

Most Blind Date winners brought a same-gender friend. Sergio (who won through a radio station Web site) held a conference-call lottery with 37 friends. He pulled names from a hat to eliminate them one by one. Rob (drinking Corona when an MGD field-marketing staffer invited him to enter) brought the buddy who visited him every week during his cancer treatment. (Joe used to drive a Budweiser truck; he’d dress friends in Bud uniforms and smuggle them into concerts.) One 2001 winner brought her former boyfriend, even though they’d broken up and she’d married since then. Distributors and the occasional bar owner brought their wives. It was tricky for GMR to find some 2001 winners — “in their 20s, people’s lives change almost daily,” says Wehrley. Only four winners cancelled; 40 just didn’t show up. GMR’s Omnicom sister RPMC, Los Angeles, helped arrange travel. Winners played around the resort during the day. Any problems were handled calmly. “My philosophy is ‘No drama’,” says Wehrley. Most staffers have concert experience and worked the crowd friendly but firmly. A “command center” hotel room was staffed 24 hours a day. The biggest trouble GMR has ever had was “domestic disturbance,” says Wehrley: “We keep a few hotel rooms in our back pocket where people can go to cool down.”

On concert night, camera crews shot feverishly for crucial TV spots that carry Blind Date energy to Miller’s mass audience.

“Blind Date is more about the advertising afterwards than the event itself,” says Wehrley. TV spots of concert footage and crowd shots run through fall.

Fine Bone China played during dinner, a perk for winning a Miller-sponsored band contest in Detroit. A local junkanoo band paraded the crowd down to the beach, where Jane’s Addiction leader and Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell played a nearly hour-long DJ set. Then the band came out, and half the rumors proved right: Incubus. Flanked by Blind Date banners, they sang out towards a tight cluster of hard rockers 20 deep at the foot of the stage, a looser crowd further back, and knots of resort guests outside the fence. A few older folks asked security guards who the band was. That reassured Lauletta he had the right band.

“Let’s hear it for beer!” shouted lead singer Brandon Boyd.

Miller earned some fans that night. Miguel, who “shared intimate space with a young lady,” says he’ll drink MGD now out of gratitude: “I feel kind of obligated.”

Incubus played about an hour and a half — long enough for young fans who liked the surprise. Older folks who didn’t know the band were already back in the casino anyway.

That’s the thing about a blind date: You can never be sure who’ll show up.