Blue Moon Brewing Company Presents:

Non-Traditional Marketing

Communications Strategy

By: Julie Goldman

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.

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

1a 1b

2a 2b

3a – 19139 3b – 19104

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.

Works Cited

Angela, D. Harris."Contractors Market with Social Media." Air Conditioning, Heating &

Refrigeration News 236.10 (2009): 1-30.ABI/INFORM Complete; ProQuest Research

Library. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.

Barnett, Michael. "Art of Brewing Extends Well Beyond Beer." Marketing Week (2012):

23-7. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.

"Brewers Almanac."Brewers Almanac.N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2012.

Delgado, M. (2011). Mural Arts Program: New Revenue Streams. [Case Study].Temple

University, Fox School of Business, Enterprise Manamgent Consulting.

Geographic Research, Inc. 2010."Easy Analytic Software Inc. Census 2013 Projections."

Accessed November 20 2012, http://www.simplymap.com.

"Made In America."NBC 10 Philadelphia.N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2012.

"Social Media Marketing Basics." National Driller 32.3 (2011): 42-. ABI/INFORM

Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.

Walker, Laura. "Recognizing the Power of Promotional Products

is Key to Building Repeat Business." Nation's

Restaurant News 34.15 (2000): 38-. ABI/INFORM Complete; ProQuest Research

Library. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.

Workman, Jane E., PhD., and Beth Winfrey Freeburg PhD. "Promotional Product

Marketing, College Students,

and Social Identity." Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences 100.1 (2008): 43-9.

ProQuest Research Library.

Web. 23 Nov. 2012.