Yesterday evening I met with Dan the PR guy running the campaign. The aim seems to be more about getting non-beer drinkers enjoying beer than about converting the swill fans. The target will be more food and wine events than dedicated beer ones.
Apparently, Heineken, Diageo and A-B InBev believe that they can raise the profile of their portfolio by raising the profile of beer generally. I pointed out that there's a problem with their reluctance to name actual available examples of the styles they're promoting, and he said he'd look at that -- they did it in the launch document, and in the last press release, and they weren't all big-brewer beers either. Z-Cards[/url:3p8bpgk7] with specific beer and food matching information was one of his suggestions.
Perhaps most hopefully there has apparently been a positive response from the vintners. If more of them started stocking a variety of styles it would improve things enormously.
Anyway -- the whole thing is still a bit odd, but I understand better now what they're trying to do. Hopefully we'll see something interesting and beneficial out of it over the next couple of years.
"Dan O'Boyle":3p8bpgk7 wrote: If you or any of your group have further suggestions please feel free to contact me anytime.[/quote:3p8bpgk7]
That's dan.oboyle [at] ogilvy.com. And be nice.
