Sunday, May 22, 2011

Social Networking Meets Beer Contest

Two German students, Max Arlestig and Maximilian Gebhardt, created a project entitled "The Invite" in which they incorporate a bottle opener with Facebook.

The opener has a bluetooth connection which it uses to connect to Facebook.  Every time a beer is opened using the opener, a Facebook event is created at your location and invites your friends that live within close proximity over.  Friends are then encouraged to RSVP to the event.  Whoever ends up with the most friends RSVPing wins a free case of Heineken! 

Below is the student pitched campaign concept.

While this is a project and not a real campaign, it does have some pretty cool ideas within it.  Definitely a fun way to get involved with the Heineken brand and to get people involved (I mean it's free beer).  However, I also see several drawbacks with this idea.  First of all, do you really want an event being posted every time you open a beer?  What if there are multiple people using the opener; would you have 10, 20, 50 events created in a night?  And also, would you really want all your friends in your area to be invited (or any for that matter)?  I mean, lets face it everyone has some of those Facebook "friends".  And, if you were to have say all your friends RSVP and show up, are you going to be able to handle the party (I mean I live in a small apartment - it'd be a disaster)?

While perhaps this project isn't perfect, it definitely has some great ideas buried within.  These types of interactive social campaigns are starting to become popular among companies, trying to find the most creative way to interact.  One company that is trying to campaign on this social level is Pepsi.

No comments:

Post a Comment