Review of the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project 2011
I. Summary of the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project 2011
Smirnoff is the world’s number-one selling premium alcohol according to Smirnoff. With that in mind, that means there are people all over the world drinking Smirnoff at different occasions, places, and times. Smirnoff began to wonder how people used their vodka in different parts of the world. What kind of drinks did people make with it? Where did they go to drink it? Were they celebrating? What was the occasion? What other activities did they do while they drank Smirnoff? To answer these questions, Smirnoff began the Nightlife Exchange Project in 2010. Most alcoholic drinks are drank during the night when people go out so the project focused on nightlife around the world. Consumers would post about their nightlife experiences with Smirnoff and then Smirnoff would take the most interesting and exciting answers to create 14 giant parties around the world. Each party would celebrate another countries nightlife and consumers would get a chance to experience Smirnoff through the perspective of people from another country. This project was so successful in 2010 that Smirnoff is doing it again in 2011, but taking it up a notch
Smirnoff has asked consumers to go to their Facebook page and submit their posts about nightlife. The “Nightlife Exchange” section will prompt questions about music, places, dance, food, drinks, and more to get the best perspective of how you celebrate your nightlife. You are also able to see other people’s posts and you can even “like” your favorite ones. Smirnoff will again be hosting gigantic parties around the world and if you participated in exchanging your ideas on nightlife, you may win an invite to the party in your country.
One of the biggest trends that Smirnoff noticed from last year’s project and parties, was that dancing is something people love to do around the world. That is why this year, the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project is teaming up with Madonna to find her next backup dancer. Madonna is the Queen of the dance floor and a global icon, just like Smirnoff. People submit an entry video of themselves dancing on Smirnoff’s website and the finalist get to perform in front of Madonna at the culmination of the project on November 12, 2011.
II. Critique of the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project 2011
This is a completely original campaign and Smirnoff is doing an excellent job of executing it. Smirnoff is relying heavily on the digital world for this project to succeed and because of that, they are trying their best to utilize all of their tools.
Facebook is a heavy player in this project. Smirnoff is posting information about the project on there as well as providing all of the tools necessary to enter the project and see what it is about. I enjoy that you can see others’ posts and what they are doing with their nightlife. You are even able to get ideas of what Smirnoff and other global fans are doing in their region by clicking on their country in the “Around The World” section of Smirnoff’s Facebook. You can get ideas for new recipies, where to go out, what to do, and even what to eat when you do go out. This is a really creative idea and Smirnoff is even pushing it on twitter. They are engaging with people and tweeting them back about their ideas and various tweets regarding Smirnoff. It’s excellent that Smirnoff is having an open dialogue with it’s fans and consumers rather than using these platforms as just a monologue where only Smirnoff provides information.
A critique I have for Smirnoff is that they did not take advantage of mobile marketing for this campaign. Since this campaigns was done before, they have an idea of places that are popular and fun all across the globe. Smirnoff could have teamed up with FourSquare and used check-ins at these places to provide tips about Smirnoff, the project, or even perhaps made a special badge. Smirnoff has all of this information about locations where people drink Smirnoff and they did not fully take advantage of it. I really think that FourSquare could have been used as a great push to get people to buy Smirnoff, participate in the project, and become more connected to their brand.
With that being said, I still think that this is a fascinating campaign. I am intrigued to see how the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project 2011 culmination will go this weekend when the exchange parties all over the world occur and Madonna picks her next backup dancer.
For more information about the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project 2011, visit any of these websites:
http://www.smirnoff.com/en-us/
http://www.facebook.com/smirnoffus?sk=wall
http://twitter.com/#!/Smirnoff
