Clever ad stunt rewards you with beer
South African Breweries has put together a clever ad stunt wherein people over 18 (the legal drinking age in their distribution area) can put on a headset, think “cool” thoughts, and the “mind-powered” device, dubbed the “Extra Cold Mind Reader,” will reward the person with a perfectly poured Castle Lite beer.
If you put your mind to it, you can overcome the distractions of images of extreme heat or sexy people and think cool thoughts, landing you a free beer. The device measures spontaneous brain activity as well as conscious thought, emotion, and facial expressions, and the person wearing the device is rewarded with the percentage of beer they were able to produce with cool thoughts – so if you could think of cool thoughts 90 percent of the time, you get 90 percent of a glass of beer.
The clever ad stunt was designed by Hellocomputer and Thingking, and the brand promoted is Castle Lite by South African Breweries, a popular low-carb beer.
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Why the campaign works
The campaign works for several reasons, namely branding and social media. Users not only have a tangible, memorable experience with the brand, it is just creative enough for them to tell their friends about it, take pictures and videos of it and share it online, expanding brand recognition and in essence drip marketing.
Brands of size can afford large campaigns like this, but smaller brands with smaller budgets can still implement street-style campaigns that involve people, just think back to the “Free Hugs” guy who, although he was promoting no brand other than world peace, was memorable and worth talking about with friends. What will your mind reading device or free hug equivalent be?
