Will Work for Beer
Picture The Apprentice set in a glacier field instead of a boardroom, and you’ve got a glimpse of Alaskan Brewing Co.’s marketing plan.
The brewery has hired six marketing majors for a four-week stint at its Juneau headquarters; they’ll then do field marketing and research in their West Coast hometowns. The six, dubbed the Alaskan Summer Six Pack, were chosen from 300 entrants in a contest held on college campuses in 10 Western states this spring.
The new hires get $5,000 each and four weeks of on-the-job training, from marketing to quality control and product development. Oh, and there are field trips: a whale-watching cruise, wakeboarding and glacier hiking.
The Six Pack also serves as a focus group for Alaskan’s marketing staff — what Director of Marketing Fred Hees calls “our beer brain trust.”
“We wanted people who are familiar with how their peers think,” he says. “We also wanted some experience, like bartending, but primarily we looked for enthusiasm and a connection to their peers.”
“They’re coming in with marketing expertise, so it’s more than a summer internship,” says Scott Smith, president of Communications Works, the Anaheim, CA-based agency handling the effort.
Alaskan advertised the recruitment campaign on and around campuses, and met with career counselors on 16 campuses to recruit students. “Next year I want to do a 12-pack, or a case,” Marketing Communications Director Kristi Monroe laughs.
“I’ve never seen an application like that. Instead of sending a resume, it was three questions and a picture,” says Six Packer Hilary Bingman, a 2005 University of Washington graduate. “They were such broad questions and I didn’t know what they really wanted.”
Six Packer Brian Dreeland (from California State-Fullerton) is eager to use his marketing major right away.
“It would be easy to fall into something outside my major. But this fills what I’m looking for — speaking as a brand spokesperson, working in a marketing-driven industry, [helping set] brand strategy. Plus, it seems like such a cool place to be.”
The promotion is an extension of Alaskan’s four-year-old Our Brew, Our Crew print ad campaign that features brewery employees with active lifestyles. The Summer Six Pack may appear in future ads, which are handled in-house.
Alaskan is small, but growing fast. It sold 52,4000 barrels in the first six months of 2005, and could hit 100,000 barrels by year-end. Sales are up 40% in Washington state, and 30% in its home state. But there are no plans to expand distribution beyond the West.
