New Year’s Eve Roundup: How Alcohol Brands Spiked Their Sampling Events in 2018
Good drinks often come with good stories, and brands across the spectrum of spirits and beers set out to create them this year using experiential to bring them to life. From explore-able spaces to unusual pairings to cheeky activations to a b-to-b setting rife with pomp and circumstance, on the eve of a new year, we look back at a year’s worth of sampling events and experiences in the spirits and beer spaces. Cheers.
Bacardi’s Festival Sponsorship Features Cocktail Education, Cause Marketing and Caribbean Vibes
Bacardi brought its “Live Passionately” mantra to the Life is Beautiful Music & Art Festival for a second year with a medley of experiences that paid homage to the brand’s Caribbean heritage and underscored its ties to music. Returning to downtown Las Vegas Sept. 21-23, the brand delivered cocktail education, purpose-driven art and some good...
Castello Cheeses Samples Regional Food Festivals with Beer, Burgers and Mongers
Wine and cheese pair well, of course, but Castello cheeses found a way to express the creative nature of its recipes by pairing its crafted cheeses with crafted beer in a sampling experience that invited consumers of food and jazz festivals this summer to “Hoptimize Their Love of Cheese.” The Castello Biergarten sampling activation, held...
Inside The Macallan Manor, Attendees Embark on a Multisensory Journey
The Macallan is known for immersing influencers in the old-world craft of producing single-malt Scotch whisky. With The Macallan Manor, the brand created a journey through four worlds, complete with storytelling and multisensory elements. Agency: Adam Aleksander Presents. × 4 ARTICLES LEFT!Subscribe Today and Get Unlimited Use of the World’s Largest Content Resource on Experiential...
Budweiser Courts Soccer Fans with a Culture-Forward World Cup Final Viewing Event
As the global beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, Budweiser wanted to celebrate with soccer fans—some of the most passionate in the globe—in its own backyard. The result was a 750-person Budweiser LIVE World Cup final viewing event in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on July 15 that featured soccer influencers and athletes, New York City...
More Than a ‘Straight Pour.’ Inside Exotico Tequila’s Sampling Activations
With its sights set on millennials and their penchant for all things handcrafted, Exotico Tequila hit Hispanic food festivals across the U.S. with a playful activation fueled by shaved ice cocktails. From mid-August to mid-September, the brand, whose spirits are crafted in the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico, brought its heritage to life at festivals in...
How MillerCoors Transformed a Reception into a Brand Immersion for Distributors
The reception at MillerCoors’ Distributor National Convention has taken many shapes over the years—unfolding indoors in ballrooms and outdoors along streetscapes. The evening event is intended to feel like a networking party for the more than 3,000 folks in attendance with the intention to highlight all of the brands and messaging presented during the day’s...
Instagrammable Moments, a Pop-up Corn Maze and LGBTQ: Inside Smirnoff’s Launch Event
Smirnoff is all about fun and inclusivity, so when it came time to reveal some serious news—that its vodka is now made with non-GMO corn—the brand delivered the message with a lighthearted event fitting of its character. The announcement was made in October, prompting Smirnoff to deliver a seasonal experience that directly tied back to...
Bud Light’s NFL Activation Taps Into Texas Pride
As the official beer of the NFL through 2022, Bud Light needed a sizable presence at the NFL Draft April 26-28 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Because when you’re in Texas, you go big or go home. From a strategy perspective, the trifecta of beer, football and friendship aligned with Bud Light perfectly. “As...
Bacardi’s Havana Club Leverages Immersive Theater to Bring its Heritage to Life
“This is your key to the back door,” we were told, and handed skeleton keys to wear around our necks. It was a hint that the immersive theatrical experience we were about to take part in was exclusive, authentic and “the real thing.” Presented to a group of tastemakers, bartenders and media on April 3...
SAMCOM 2018: Three Ways AB InBev Turned a Sales Conference Into an Unforgettable Experience
Each year, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) dedicates three days to showcasing its strategy for the year ahead, raising a glass to the past year’s successes and energizing the thousands of employees and wholesaler partners in attendance around the future of its brands. It’s an event that has traditionally been infused with experiential elements, but this...
Anatomy of a Bodega: Altos Tequila Events Celebrate the Spirit of La Familia
As part of a six-city event series, Altos Tequila’s J. Hernandez and Sons Bodega pop-up made a stop in Greenpoint, N.Y., June 11 and 12. To celebrate the brand’s Mexican heritage and culture, it recreated a bodega from scratch, complete with all the details you’d expect: old-school coffee pots, slushies and even a cat. The...
How Espolon Tequila Wins Over Bartenders with ‘Cocktail Fights’ and Costumes
Cocktail-loving consumers in bars today are faced with a multitude of spirits to choose from. So, for beverage brands like Espolon Tequila, it’s critical to stand out on the shelf. A tried-and-true way to do that is through bartender advocacy—because if the bartender is excited about it, you’re drinking it. Enter: Espolon Tequila’s “Cocktail Fights,”...