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August 29, 2003

Hey, Beer Mon

The folks at Red Stripe Beer have gone in an interesting direction with their marketing: the informercial. Are they desperate? No. Their "Hooray Beer" campaign has driven 3,000 calls to their 800 number, tripled traffic to their website and increased sales 20 percent, according to Brandweek Magazine.

The key to the infauxrmercial is humor. It features the "Red Stripe Ambassador" and his sidekick Jimmy, who are selling everything from mints to telescopes to Jimmy's right shoe as the two-minute ad goes on. Each time the ad cuts from a merchandise shot to the ambassador, he and Jimmy are nearly caught sipping from the lager, a tv no-no.

Red Stripe (and their agency, BBDO) have taken something reviled and turned it on its head with often hilarious results, and in the process, they've increased sales by 20 percent.

Sure beats those putrid Coors commercials about twins and other cool guys wearing snow hats because they'e oh-so-extreme.

Posted by Kevin O'Donovan at August 29, 2003 12:05 PM | Category: branding | 2 Comments

2 COMMENTS

Posted by: stuart dean at July 8, 2004 1:27 PM: i think the horay beer ads are very dull and boring. we're not playing to our strenghts. if those ads attribute sales to a 20% increase, then imagine how much higher that could be with lively, catchy ads. i think what we're do wrong is being like the competition, in their arena.
Posted by: Lenns at January 31, 2006 3:54 AM: need to get more sensible ads and regain local market