1. Blue Moon Brewing
Company Presents:
Non-Traditional
Marketing
Communications
Strategy
By: Julie Goldman
2. Executive Summary
At a time when Blue Moon Brewing Company is enjoying sale success, we feel
that sustaining success comes down to designing a Non-Traditional Marketing
Communications Strategy. In planning the Non-Traditional Marketing Communications
strategy we chose to focus on five individual campaigns, which intertwine with one
another to create an overall buzz and awareness about the products Blue Moon has to
offer. With our objectives being to spread awareness about the Blue Moon brand using
different methods and executions, we chose to focus on a Social Media campaign, a
Product and Apparel Campaign, a Mural Project Campaign, a Hurricane Sandy Relief
Charity Campaign and a Local Events Campaign. After analyzing our current brand
positioning and target audience, we feel that these campaigns will be the most successful
in meeting our goals as well as being measureable. By executing these five Non-
Traditional Marketing campaigns, we feel that Blue Moon product awareness will
expand, thus sales will boost to an even higher level than they have already done.
Blue Moon Brewing Company
Blue Moon Brewing Company is currently owned by MillerCoors and under the
craft beer division of the company. It was originally started by Keith Villa in Denver,
Colorado and launched in 1995. Since then, Blue Moon has experienced great success
especially with a recent boost in craft beer popularity. Blue Moon offers many different
flavors that usually are introduced seasonally.
3. Blue Moon Brand Image
Blue Moon prides itself on its brand image, which emphasizes that to them,
brewing is an art and they only brew high-quality, specialty beer. It has even been
said that the name Blue Moon was coined when someone mentioned “A beer that
tastes this good comes around only once in a Blue Moon.” They like to say that their
beers our “slightly unusual” and appealing to a sophisticated palette. Blue Moon is
not one’s typical CoorsLight or BudLight beer and it is supposed to be an experience
to drink a Blue Moon. Recently the company has focused its marketing efforts on
creating an “Artfully Crafted” campaign with a dominant focus on art and brewing as
an art. We feel this does well in appealing to Blue Moon’s target audience and plan
to incorporate the “Artfully Crafted” brand image into our Non-Traditional
Marketing Campaign.
Target Audience
After analyzing Blue Moon’s brand and sales data, we concluded that Blue
Moon’s target audience is both male and female between the ages of 21 and 35. Blue
Moon drinkers tend to have an above average income, as it is a more expensive beer
than a CoorsLight or Budlight. Those drinking Blue Moon beverages are typically
educated, cultured, and tend to be more social, thus we focus a lot on University
areas in Philadelphia.
Non-Traditional Marketing Communications Campaigns:
4. Blue Moon Product and Apparel Campaign
One way that is memorable and cost-effective for spreading awareness of your
product is through the use of creative promotional products. A good-quality promotional
product is functional and can be used for a very long time. A study conducted by the
Promotional Product Association International (PPAI) asked respondents to think of a
promotional product they’d received in the past two years and to recall the specific
product, the advertiser and the message. “A whopping 76.2% recalled all three key pieces
of information.” This shows that promotional products are powerful, both as effective
forms of communication and as useable, necessary tools to spread brand awareness.
Objectives:
Boost brand awareness of Blue Moon beers
Increase word-of-mouth regarding Blue Moon products and apparel
Create Buzz through the use of Blue Moon products and apparel
Increase the amount of Blue Moon beer repurchases and loyal customers
Execution:
First we must determine a distribution plan to the right target audience. College
students typically are in a stage of life characterized by identity exploration. The Social
Identity Theory, characterized by emerging adulthood (ages 18-25), is one framework
concerned with self-categorization of adults. Promotional products are designed to
encourage individuals to view consumption of a particular product as an expression of
identity (Workmen and Winfrey 2). Promotional items that include brand names and
5. images are more likely to be worn and used effectively especially with emerging adults
because these items will represent and communicate the wearer’s identity. Students are
the most vulnerable to this situation and want to express their identity. Therefore,
targeting this audience with Blue Moon’s promotional product campaign will be the most
effective tactic.
Next, the central theme that will be used to promote this product will coincide
with the company’s overall theme of artistically handcrafted beer. Basically this
campaign will support Blue Moon’s message that brewing beer is an art and that Blue
Moon is a unique and high quality beer.
The products will include Blue Moon’s art and quotes all over its t-shirts, baseball
caps, bottle koozies and glassware. Research configured by the PPAI suggested that
among students at one university, more than 45% owned alcohol promotional items, with
T-shirts and hats being the most common items (Workman, 2004). The appeal of alcohol
promotional items was noteworthy-not only did about half of the students have alcohol
promotional items but nearly 40% indicated that they would like to have something (or
something else) with an alcohol brand name. This is a great opportunity and indication
that Blue Moon can really succeed in supporting their objectives here. An example of
these products is depicted in Appendix A.
Another idea for creating buzz for Blue Moon products is to have a flash mob set
up at various populated college student locations. A flash mob is a group of people who
assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual act for a brief time and then disperse,
with the purpose of entertaining the public around them. It’s an artistic expression that
would support Blue Moon’s overall theme. Blue Moon will provide a choreographer that
6. will teach a large group of students the flash mob dance. They will also offer them the
opportunity to receive free Blue Moon gear as long as they wear it during a flash mob
created by them. This act would create buzz for Blue Moon and would get others
interested in joining the flash mob around the country. The buzz that will accumulate will
create an infatuation with Blue Moon, which will cause consumers to purchase Blue
Moon products and apparel. In turn, this will create brand awareness for Blue Moon and
eventually will persuade consumers to purchase and repurchase Blue Moon beer.
Measurability:
Measuring the effectiveness of this campaign is very important. This will provide
the team with insight as to whether the campaign is successful or not. First, we will track
the increase of Blue Moon product sales using the website store. Then, we will follow the
increase of flash mob participants in various locations by having sign in sheets at each
location. By tracking the amount of increased participants, we can get an idea of how
quickly the word-of-mouth is spreading. Also, at each location a flash mob has the
potential of reaching a certain amount of people that pass that area in a day. For example,
just around Drexel University you have the potential of reaching 23,000 active students.
We plan on conducting two flash mobs each month for a period of three months and then
follow the success of the campaign. The cost of this campaign is quite low, where it
would cost $15,000 for a bulk order of 2500 shirts, $500 to hire a choreographer and
absolutely nothing for the actual flash mob creation. There will be no cost for participants
to join the flash mob. This idea will hopefully encourage more participants to join in. The
flash mob itself basically provides “free” press, because people will start talking about it
either in person to each other or on various social media platforms. Blue Moon will then
7. follow word-of-mouth regarding the flash mobs and products and apparel purchases on
social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The use of social media
platforms will be explored further in the Social Media Campaign.
Blue Moon Mural Project Campaign
Marketing Objectives:
There are several objectives that will be achieved through the Blue Moon Mural
Project. The objectives for this tactic are communications oriented.
The majority of Philadelphians that encounter these installations will be
members of the target market who will see them daily. Even if they do not
particularly care for the ad the constant repetition will Build Associations and
brand recall with blue moon enhancing opportunity.
The campaign fosters positive attitudes about Blue Moon and the Blue Moon
Brewing Co. through philanthropy enhancing image and creating opportunity for
earned publicity
When the advertisements are gone in one year’s time, the mural will remain.
This will cause consumers to form positive associations about Blue Moon
because they have beautified the neighborhood, although they may not have
liked the original ad.
The near exposure effect will cause consumers who have never tried Blue Moon
to buy the beverage
8. The murals enhance consumer motivation using the atypical mural approach.
This will entice consumers.
Many of the target market will receive repeated exposure to the murals and
advertisements. This repetition will help build brand awareness and likability in
the target’s minds.
Keep costs manageable
Increase word-of-mouth buzz
Execution:
Murals and street art are synonymous with the city of Philadelphia. There are
thousands of murals that line the streets, earning it international acclaim as the
“City of Murals.” (Examples of these creations can be seen in exhibit 1a-b.) We
propose that Blue Moon Brewing Co., partner with the City Mural Arts Program to
perform a limited guerilla marketing campaign in the region by introducing artistic
murals which feature Blue Moon Beer. The new tactic will coincide with the current
artwork inspired “Artfully Crafted” campaign, which utilizes expressionist, and
impressionist, art works that feature Blue Moon Beer (examples in exhibit 4a-b).
The Blue Moon Mural Project will use the large art installations to showcase
Blue Moon and classic Philadelphia scenes painted. This will increase brand
awareness and brand loyalty in the city by appealing to urbanites personal
identification with Philadelphia. Also, the project will be based in philanthropy
increasing appeal in the geographic region. Some examples of ideas for Blue moon
murals can be seen in the appendix, exhibit 2a-b. Blue Moon will donate the cost of
9. the creations as well as an additional charitable donation to be determined by
executive staff, and in return ask for Blue Moon to be featured in the paintings for
just one year from their completion. Blue Moon will also give the local artists and
Mural Arts Program input into the subject matter so that the works can be altered
when the campaign is finished. However, Blue Moon will ask that, for the year, the
Blue Moon brand, bottle, or image be given prominence in the image, and the ability
to bring in accredited artists from other regions.
Implementation
Blue Moon will donate five new murals to Philadelphia through the Mural
Arts Program. Depending on size each project costs $20,000 to $60,000. (Delgado 1)
Blue Moon will pay for the project and alterations one year later and promote their
activities through their social-media outlets. Blue Moon will work with Mural Arts to
pick site locations that are advantageous to both organizations.
Blue Moon’s target is an educated and cultured group between the ages of 21
and 35. We imagine a typical Blue Moon drinker to be social, sophisticated and more
than likely to live in an urban environment. As such Blue Moon will work to place
the murals in high traffic areas for these individuals. Blue Moon will also work with
local business owners to secure wall space if public or blighted walls are not
available or suitable.
At least two of the murals should be placed strategically in University City.
Drexel, the University of Pennsylvania, and University of the Sciences are all located
in University City housing thousands of students and young professionals.
10. The University City zip codes 19139, 19104, and 19143 have almost 170,000
residents with a median age of 30. (U.S. Census)
o 19139 - 44,113 with a median age of 35
o 19104 - 50,377 with a median age of 22.6
o 19143 - 70,565 with a median age of 34
A breakdown of demographics in these areas can be seen in appendix 3a-c
Murals are generally placed in residential neighborhoods because of the
abundance of blank wall space and goal of neighborhood beautification. Therefor,
the pieces should be placed in the neighborhoods within University City that house
the student and young professional populations. These neighborhoods include,
Powelton Village; Walnut Hill; Spruce Hill; and Squirrel Hill. The murals should be
placed on main streets that are highly traveled on to get to classes and shopping, as
to reach the largest part of the segment as possible.
The remaining murals should be placed on walls around South Street, Olde
City, Northern Liberties/Fishtown, or Fairmount. These areas are all high traffic
areas for the Blue Moon Target. These areas are not only residential but contain a
majority of popular nightlife destinations for young people in Philadelphia.
Blue Moon should work with Mural Arts as much as possible through the
process and promote the charitable aspect of the project. Though as the project
progresses Blue Moon might find other places in Philadelphia that would make
promising, affordable places for mural-type advertisments.
11. In this case Blue Moon should work with local business owners and
homeowners to secure wall space and artists to do the project independently. This
will allow the company to create interesting new works independently that reflect
the current campaign and brand image as well as keep costs low.
While Philadelphia is the “City of Murals” this project can repeated in other
metropolitan areas throughout the country. Though each city does not have it’s own
department devoted to murals, the concept can still be duplicated privately.
Finally, this campaign should be integrated into social-media as much as possible.
The focus should be on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, which allow users to get
information about Blue Moon and post photos on the go. Subscribers should be
encouraged to take photos in front of the murals when completed and upload them
to social networks. Consumers could win discounts or deals for best photograph or
pose with the hashtag #bluemoonmurals.
Measurability:
The success of the Blue Moon Mural Arts project will be measured in two
ways. First, Sales will be measured, before, during, and after the campaign for a
duration of two years. Sales data will be analyzed by the individual zip codes that
the murals will be created in. This will allow us to accurately gauge the effectiveness
of the ads on sales in the targeted market and areas.
The campaign will also be measured along with the success of our other
social media campaigns. The Blue Moon Mural Arts project will be integrated into
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and youtube. Monitoring account activity across these
networks will allow us to see how many of those in the target market talk about the
12. mural project, upload photos, and cite the Blue Moon hash tag. Further analysis of
this measurement is examined in the social media portion of the report.
Blue Moon Rescue Team-Charity Campaign
Some of us consider the place we are living peaceful, but the truth is there are
always some places that need help because of natural and man-created disasters. In the
Eastern coast area, the most recent natural disaster was hurricane Sandy. Natural disasters
can damage the local environment and people. Every time a natural disaster happens,
people pay attention and take care of the situation. We can use this idea to start an
alternative marketing campaign.
The idea of this campaign is to find a group of professional first aid people who
will be the representatives of Blue moon. This Blue Moon Rescue team will travel to the
place that experienced a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Sandy, and the team can
provide support. There are lots of places where people are facing problems such as
droughts, homeless, mass starvation, and disease. For example, the team will bring
supplies to hurricane Sandy victims and stay there to help. They will upload journal or
video about the disaster to the Blue Moon website or YouTube. Also, Blue Moon will
donate money to supply to the disaster area.
Objectives:
• Build a strong brand image and position
• Create Buzz through the journal or video uploads by the Rescue Team
• Increase the amount of Loyalty customers
• Expand the target market for Blue Moon
13. Execution:
This campaign can gain a great amount of word of mouth advertising. The team
will travel to different places with bad situations and show conditions to website viewers
by uploading a web journal or video. This can be a good way to catching the viewer’s
attention. Once consumers start looking at the team and become interested, Blue Moon
can deliver their brand information much easier. When natural disasters happen, the team
will get there with supplement as soon as possible. Blue Moon will give donations from a
certain amount of product profit to those places. For example, Blue Moon will donate 2
dollars for a dozen in beer sales. Blue Moon will gain awareness as the news of natural
disaster spreads out by being there to aid victims and their families. This may not lead to
direct sales of beer. However, according to the Hierarchy of Effects, the buzz and word of
mouth will lead to infatuation, and then lead to sales and purchase.
The team members are spokespeople of the brand. The members of the team
should be selected carefully and stay constant. Constancy of the team member will make
them closer to the consumer. Since these team members are just normal people, it’s easy
to lead the consumer to want to become one of the team members to help.
One further step to bring the consumer to deeper inside the brand is allowing them
to join the rescue team. Blue Moon can open the team for the public to join. Allowing the
consumers to be a part of the brand will increase their loyalty to the brand.
Although Blue Moon’s target audience is ages 21-35, this type of campaign opens
up an opportunity to reach a broader target audience, thus potentially increasing Blue
Moon sales. Since this campaign does not only cater to beer drinkers but also to those
whom feel passionate about helping the victims of a Hurricane that hit so close to
14. Philadelphia, this expands the target audience and exposes more Philadelphians to the
Blue Moon Brand, which ultimately leads to spreading awareness beyond our original
scope.
Measurability:
In order to measure the success of this campaign, we can compare the click rate of
the journal and video to the increase of the sale. We will be highly reliant on social
media. We will also monitor views on the journal or video, comments on the journal or
video, numbers of people who join the team, and sales increase during the donation
period and use these factors to measure the success of the campaign.
The running time for this campaign depends on the period of time the natural
disaster happens during. However, we can start now with Hurricane Sandy and use this
campaign to help the victims of that particular storm. We can post news on the website
and let people know about the developments in our team set up.
Promotional Events Campaign
Objectives:
Improve Blue Moon’s market share in Philadelphia
Establish Blue Moon as a quality craft beer in Philadelphia
Increase sale and distribution of Blue Moon in Philadelphia
Integrate promotion events into the social media campaign
Over the past decade, as according to the Brewers Almanac and Brews Association,
annual US beer production has been on the decline1.
However, whilst production of beer
as a whole is decreasing, the sale of craft beer has been on the rise for the past four
15. years2.
This is a huge opportunity for Blue Moon to market and establish themselves as a
quality craft brew across the country. However, the Philadelphia craft beer seen is
definitely an obstacle and hard to penetrate. Philadelphia is known for it’s local craft
brews and they are seen in most bars in Philadelphia. Yards Brewing Company,
Philadelphia Brewing Company, Victory Brewing Company, Flying Fish Brewing
Company, and Sly Fox Beer are all mainstays within the Philadelphia beer market and
have established themselves and won the hearts of Philadelphians as a quality craft brew.
It is for these reasons that we have chosen to create a promotional events campaign. We
want to change the perception Philadelphian’s have of Blue Moon as not just a beer that
appears at happy hours frequently and you can get it for relatively cheap. We want Blue
Moon to be the beer that even “beer connoisseurs” enjoy.
Execution:
We have created 3 main events that we will use to make up our promotional events
campaign. Each of these events will take place over the course of the years and specific
times of the year will be discussed further within each campaign
Philadelphia’s demographic has a huge population of “foodies.” Because of this,
we plan to target foodies within our target market to attend Beer and Food tastings. Blue
Moon staffs an executive chef, Kellan Hori, who is constantly coming up with new
recipes which showcase the Blue Moon taste. Obviously, all of these dishes are meant to
be paired with Blue Moon which is why a Beer and Food tasting is so appropriate.
There will be two types of events housed under this umbrella of “Beer and Food
tastings.” One event will cater specifically to the beer distributors and restaurant/bar
owners who will be selling their beer. The other event will cater to the general public. It
16. is appropriate to split these events in to two because they are both serving two different
purposes. Blue Moon needs the distributors and restaurant/bar to see the value in their
beer, to know that there beer will sell and that it will sell well. For this reason, this event
will be catered towards more sales. On the other hands, Blue Moon is trying to build a
relationship with it’s Philadelphia consumers to prove to them that they are a quality beer
that is worth giving a shot and not just because it is cheaper than a Magic Hat #9.
These events will take a lot of planning and preparation and in attempt to make it
not only easier for Blue Moon but easier for the customers as well, Blue Moon will host
events in each of Philadelphia’s major neighborhoods that fall into our target marketing;
those being: University City, Center City East and West, Northern Liberties/Fishtown,
South Street, and Fairmount Park. By holding events in each major neighborhood, Blue
Moon is likely to benefit through word-of-mouth marketing; if someone missed event in
Center City East one month, maybe they heard about the one in Center City West from
their friend an can go together. Blue Moon will partner with either bars or banquet halls
to hold these events depending on what is available in that specific neighborhood.
First Fridays are a long standing tradition within Philadelphia. They take place
mostly between Front and 3rd
streets, and Vine and Marketing streets and caters mostly to
the artistic community. This area is highly populated with the people we are looking to
target for all of our campaigns. Again, Blue Moon will take advantage of their executive
chef, Kellan Hori, to make quick snacks for the passerby’s. We will also be selling our
products and apparel and be giving discount cards for Blue Moon at participating bars
throughout Philadelphia. Also, artists who participated in the Blue Moon mural arts
campaign will be able to further show off their work to Philadelphians.
17. This sort of event would be a very high frequency event. There is not too much
interaction with consumers however, with the proper marketing in place we can make
Blue Moon something memorable and continue to build that personal interaction that we
are striving to achieve. First Fridays are held all year round and Blue Moon plans to have
a presence at each of them (12 total).
Last, Blue Moon is going to host a concert similar to the Made in America concert
sponsored by Budweiser in August. The City of Philadelphia and Mayor Nutter reported
to NBC Philadelphia that the festival generated at least $10 million for the city’s
economy. Budweiser did not disclose how much they profited as a result of the concert
but one can assume that they made out pretty well.
This concert would follow the same sort of format the Made in America concert
only catering more to our demographic. Blue Moon will be sold on site and instead
featuring artists such as Jay-Z and other similar popular artists, bands such as the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Jason Mraz, the Dave Matthews Band, and John Mayer will play instead.
These bands tend to attract an older and more mature crowd than that of some of the hip
artists which is why we chose these bands.
Because of the scale of the concert, it will only be hold once over the year that
Blue Moon really markets itself to Philadelphia. This will sometime in the spring so it is
still early in our campaign and can be a huge awareness kick-starter. Blue Moon can
showcase all of the cool things they plan to do around Philadelphia will provide
information on how to get involved. The concert is a great way to get attention in
masses. As long as the concert is marketed properly, it is guaranteed to gain a huge
18. following and people will associate Blue Moon with this awesome event for years to
come.
Measurability:
Blue Moon will primarily measure the success of this campaign through ticket
sales and through the profit that we return through this campaign. We will also track the
distribution of beer in the state stores as well as in bars and see if there is any change as a
result of our promotion. Lastly, this campaign will be heavily measured through our
social media campaign, which will be discussed further later on.
Social Media Campaign
As part of a non-traditional marketing communications campaign for Blue Moon
Brewing Company, we propose to use various forms of social media as one alternative
way to communicate about the Blue Moon beer. We came to a mutual conclusion that
although it may be hard for social media to serve completely on its own, when thrown
into the marketing mix, it is a highly effective tool. We plan to use Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, YouTube, and Foursquare to achieve our objectives for the campaign. Out of
the multiple alternative ways of communication, social media is one of the easier ones to
measure effectiveness with and gage how well it worked as a tool.
Objectives:
Raise awareness about the Blue Moon Beer
Generate a word-of-mouth buzz in the Philadelphia area about Blue Moon’s art
focus
Create a platform for users and Blue Moon drinkers to share and discuss
19. information regarding their Blue Moon experience
Create interaction between Consumer and company
Use Social Media as a tool to link and intertwine the other alternative marketing
campaigns
Execution:
There are many outlets and methods in executing a social media campaign. Sandy
Carter, VP-service-oriented architecture and WebSphere marketing, strategy, and
channels at IBM, has stated, “The first thing I learned about social media is that, all by
itself, it doesn’t yield the results I wanted. My best results were in feeding social media
into the marketing mix.” (Harris) We found her personal opinion very similar to ours and
decided to use Social Media as the intertwining campaign to link the four other
campaigns.
In terms of social media as a part of parent campaign for Blue Moon, the most
effective method is to overall raise awareness through relevant posts, promotion of
events, and promotion offers and discounts. We hope to have 2-3 teammates on the
marketing team be responsible for managing social media. As social media managers,
they will be responsible for collaborating with the market research team as well as
Customer Relationship Management team in order to learn what clients and the target
audience are looking for in terms of advertisement and exposure. We want to make sure
that the information being posted via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare is
relevant. An example is Blue Moon posting a thanksgiving recipe via Facebook that
would be complemented by a Blue Moon beverage a few days before the holiday, when
most of their target audience was in preparation for their big dinners. In order to better
20. execute the social media strategy we would like to focus specifically on the individual
social medias.
Blue Moon already has a very established and dominant Facebook page. One
could view at this link: http://www.facebook.com/bluemoon?fref=ts. The page includes
many images. The Facebook page is a platform for customer and company interaction,
which can be seen through posts from happy customers as well as from the company
itself. The page allows for the company to advertise specials, events where Blue Moon
will be served and featured, and at the same time it allows for apostles, loyalist costumers
who are so satisfied with the product, they chose to share their positive feelings about the
product with others. This word of mouth advertising not only is essential, but also is of no
cost to the company. In order to further establish and improve the existing Blue Moon
Facebook page we plan to post about the other non-traditional advertising media’s in our
campaign. Since we plan to have events and give away promotions, we will use the
already established Facebook page to advertise such events. Thus, users can share the
information with Facebook users who may not have been exposed to Blue moon online or
offline and gain awareness for the product. We can also post pictures of the murals from
our Mural art campaign in an attempt to gage more interest in the murals as well as help
customers and users to identify these images with the brand. Overall we want to use the
already established Facebook to page to connect users with the new events and artistic
campaigns we hope to launch.
Although Blue Moon does have a current Twitter profile, it is barely used and not
developed. We would completely re-do the Twitter page and gather many more followers
through their established Facebook page since many, if not most Facebook users, use
21. Twitter as well. Because the current Twitter profile is so under developed we would
focus the Social Media management team’s efforts on developing this page. In order to
effectively use twitter we would use it to post information regarding other Blue Moon
campaigns but also for other forms of advertisement and marketing. In collaboration with
the other campaigns, we would use Twitter as a promotion tool for the Blue Moon
apparel with potential give away products for increased Twitter use. We would also use it
as a promotional tool for the Mural Arts campaign and especially the Promotional Local
Events campaign. With the Local Events campaign we would attempt to make the concert
Blue Moon plans to sponsor into a trending topic. This way, when anyone tweets about
the concert, they can add the Blue Moon Sponsor hash-tag, making it a promotional
success. Since Twitter success is measured in terms of replies, retweets, promotions, and
over all activity we would be actively present on Twitter. The bigger the presence one
creates on Twitter, the further they can spread their “buzz”. Our ultimate goal would be
to grow the number of users who follow us and make sure there is opportunity for
interaction and for followers to discuss our product. We could use Twitter as a promotion
platform and have our followers Retweet posts in order to reach more users and those
who don’t already follow us. Our Twitter platform, more so than any of the other social
medias, would be focused on raising awareness and gaining more followers and fans.
We plan to use YouTube as a social media form that will interact with the Blue
Moon apparel and product campaign. In an attempt to create a non-traditional marketing
campaign, we plan to have Flash Mobs set up, wearing Blue Moon gear. We plan to
promote Blue Moon gear by offering it to those who participate in the Flash Mobs, as
these Flash Mobs will be a great word of mouth communications tool. We will encourage
22. viewers and participants of the Flash Mobs to upload videos of the events onto YouTube
as part of our hope to make the Flash Mob events viral. With a viral promotion, it is very
easy and quick to spread awareness about the product. In addition to individuals
uploading video, we will create our own video with a professional crew. We hope to
make the professional video seem as if it was filmed spontaneously, attracting our target
audience to share the video, hence adding to the viral trend.
Instagram and Foursquare are forms of social media in which we can be more
creative with. Instagram is a great form of social media when it comes to Blue Moon’s
current brand image of brewing as an art form. Photography is one of the greatest art
forms and often an interest of our target audience. A simple method of using Instagram
would be to upload pictures of people drinking Blue Moon, having a good time, or just
bottles of the beer. Every user could have their vision of the beer and chose to express it
through a quick uploaded picture, thus sharing it with a new group of followers that may
have otherwise not been exposed. This method lends itself to the awareness effort we
have in using Social Media. Another more creative way of using Instagram as a
marketing tool is to have contests for either funniest or most creative images uploaded
and the winner gets Blue Moon products. Instagram is a way to make Blue Moon a
drinking experience and add a very social aspect to the awareness management.
Foursquare too is a very social method to raise awareness. With Foursquare we would
have to partner with certain bars and restaurants and develop promotions that could be
used. A common promotion is if one “checks in” using Foursquare they can receive a free
Blue Moon. This will then post to their Foursquare profile and inform their followers that
they are drinking Blue Moon, and about the promotion encouraging those followers who
23. may have not drank Blue Moon prior to viewing the post, to go out and order a Blue
Moon.
Measurability:
There are many different ways that we could execute the social media campaign
in addition to those we have confirmed, however the more difficult aspect of the
campaign is to measure the effectiveness and success of the individual social media
efforts. There are simple ways of measuring social media success as well as more
complicated methods. It is simple to measure the number of viewers that view a
Facebook page or Twitter profile. This will gage a sense of how well the awareness is
being spread. On Facebook, the marketing team will be able to monitor the number of
likes on individual posts as a way of monitoring an approximate number of viewers. They
will also have access to the Administration page where there are detailed reports of
weekly activity. Twitter user responses are an easy method of measurement on the
Twitter front. An increase in followers on Twitter will also help social media managers
see how effective their efforts are to spread awareness. A more complicated method to
measure effectiveness is keeping track of users who come back to a certain social media
page, how many times they do so, and how much time they spend on a particular page.
Such benchmarks will help social media managers see whom they have been able to
reach, and what improvements and changes they may need to make. Some social media
managers will go as far as analyzing key words users attribute to a particular product and
try to develop future trends from such measures. Out of the 2 to 3 social media managers
we would have working on the campaign, one of them will dedicate his or her efforts
mostly on monitoring the success of individual social media efforts and reporting the
24. analyzed measurements back to the larger team in order to keep track of the data and
make improvements.
Conclusion
We propose to create a Non-Traditional Marketing Communications Strategy that
will feature five alternative marketing campaigns that will meet our objectives and goals
and ultimately raise Blue Moon Sales. Our main objectives for this Strategy are to raise
awareness about the Blue Moon brand and create a buzz through out the Philadelphia
Area. We plan to meet these objectives and goals by rolling out the five new alternative
marketing campaigns, which include the Product and Apparel Campaign, the Mural Arts
Campaign, the Rescue Team Charity Campaign, the Local Events campaign, and the
Social Media campaign as a parent to all of the individual ideas. We hope to use various
tools and data to measure the success of each individual success and the strategy as a
whole. We will use social media benchmarks, sales data, reach and frequency data, and
distribution data in order to gage how well our alternative marketing campaigns are doing
in terms of meeting our goals and objectives. Although the ideas we have proposed are
not typical advertising methods, once we considered our particular target audience we
agreed that typical advertising methods would not be effective and we needed to reach
further and in a more sophisticated direction.
Appendix
Exhibits:
Product and Apparel Campaign
25. Blue Moon T-shirt to be sold as part of the Product and Apparel Campaign above.
Blue Moon Crew Neck Sweatshirt to be sold as part of the Product and Apparel
Campaign featuring the quote that coined the name for the company.
Mural Arts Campaign
Blue Moon Koozie
to be sold as part
of the Product
and Apparel
Campaign.
27. 3c – 19143 4a
This is the screen the Admin of a Facebook page can view to see statistics and data
about the activity on the page. One form of measurability for our social media
campaign.
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