• by Tanya Gazdik , May 9, 2012

Mike’s Hard Lemonade is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign May 9 including a unique partnership with LivingSocial.

The effort, themed “Do Summer Different,” includes TV, digital, mobile and social media, as well as promotional and point-of-sale materials. TV spots continue the tagline: "Always Different, Always Refreshing."

The “breakthrough experiential partnership” with LivingSocial gives the company “a great retail platform to excite consumers at the point of purchase and places Mike's at events,” said Andy Horrow, chief marketing officer of Chicago-based Mike's Hard Lemonade.

"What I love about this partnership with LivingSocial is that it combines real life and social media in a very meaningful way for Mike's consumers,” Horrow tells Marketing Daily.” 

Mike’s will be giving away 100-plus Living Social adventures and will provide a Mike's Hard Lemonade experience to more than 4,000 consumers directly, Horrow says.

In what is believed to be a first for the beverage alcohol category, Mike's will serve as the exclusive adult beverage and sponsor for the company's 21+ Memorial Day Weekend Summer Camp in New York; Labor Day Weekend Summer Camps in Washington, D.C., and New York.

Retail activation includes a point-of-sale sweeps (via a text-to-win call to action.) TPN Chicago will manage retail activation, promotional activity and point-of-sale materials for the campaign.

A series of TV spots, the first work for the company from Grey New York, feature guys interacting at familiar drinking occasions, like golf and fishing. Each of the spots starts with the same scene, but then reveals a rotation of four unexpected finales. The creative aims to show that when you bring Mike's to the occasion, you never know how things will turn out. 

In one vignette, a golfer goes to retrieve his ball from the cup and two convicts on the lam burst from under the green with a policeman in pursuit. In another, he takes his ball out of the hole and a spontaneous lottery drawing ensues.

The 30- and 15-second spots begin airing May 9 on male-targeted television outlets, including: Comedy Central, E!, ESPN, F/X, NBA TV, Spike, TBS, Turner Sports, NBC Sports, Fuel and Speed and digital channels such as: Hulu, ABC, NBC and Discovery Network. Fifteen-second cinema ads in more than 750 theaters nationwide launch May 9.

The foundation for the creative campaign came from a six-month, in-depth exploration of consumers' passion for the brand through a series of online communities, ethnographies, in-situation parties and co-creation workshops conducted by Kelton, a brand insights and marketing strategy consultancy.