• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, June 2, 2010

New Belgium Brewing Co. is employing its latest magazine ad for Fat Tire Ale to bring brand fans into the picture -- quite literally. 

Visitors who tour the Fort Collins, Colo.-based brewery are being invited to pose within a life-size, 3-D recreation of the ale's print ad. They can then upload the shot to New Belgium's Facebook page (under the "Bike Yourself" tab) to enter to win one of 10 custom-designed Felt single-speed cruisers that are being given away between Memorial and Labor days. (The bikes are the same model featured in New Belgium's bottle cap and logo.)

The print ad, which shows a man and woman balanced on the pedals of the ale brand's signature fat-tire bike, promotes both Fat Tire's "Amazing Feat of Balance" (as in balanced brewing) and New Belgium's "2010 Tour de Fat" bike festival. The festival is visiting 13 mid-western and western cities, including Chicago, Austin, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Brewery visitors step into the photo setup to become the subjects shown pulling off the pedal balancing act. (All props are "solidly welded in place," enabling safe participation even after brewery visitors have sampled New Belgium's beers, the brewer assures.)

New Belgium's brewery tours attract about 100,000 visitors per year, according to the company.

The real Fat Tire Ale ad is currently appearing in Rolling Stone, Wired (and Wired iPad), Men's Journal, Backpacker, Sunset, Paste, Wend and Draft, and versions that include a list of the tour stops (and in some cases, specific dates) are also being run in local weeklies in the 13 Tour de Fat cities and other regions within 23 states.

The same basic campaign theme/look is being used in point-of-sale materials for Fat Tire Ale in liquor stores and bars.

New Belgium is also promoting Tour de Fat in its Facebook page, and Fat Tire Ale's summer packaging incorporates messages/imaging related to the tour.

The ad campaign was created by Cultivator Advertising & Design, and the on-site photo installation by Scenographics, both based in Denver. The media agency is Backbone Media (Carbondale, Colo.).