A barrel of Maes for everyone named Maes

Background

Maes was Belgium’s No.2 selling beer but was being outsold by the market leader by 4:1.

The brand really needed support so it did what everyone does in times of need, it turned to family for help.

Idea

Maes is Belgium’s second most popular beer but it is also Belgium’s third most common surname. So Maes gave a free barrel of their beer to anyone who had the same name. All they had to do was sign up on Facebook, choose a pub and a date and the friends they wanted to share a drink with.

Just so people called Maes couldn’t keep it to themselves, broadcast advertising spread the news.

Direct Mail issued every person called Maes with their own personal code, which allowed them to unlock their free barrel on Facebook.

People not called Maes were encouraged to change their names and 7,000 did just that on Facebook, making Maes the largest family in Belgium.

Case video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At2o2WWiku0

Results

The Facebook app attracted over 500,000 people in only six weeks. Maes’s number of Facebook fans tripled to over 75,000 in one day and the fanpage even made it into the top 6% of the world’s most active brand pages.

Our Thoughts

Serendipitously, Cheil London had a similar sort of idea a few months ago – to get everyone called David Bailey to come together and take photographs with Samsung’s new NX camera, thus demonstrating any amateur can take shots like a pro.

This is slightly different, more of a promo idea than anything so an idea with less of a ‘long tail’ than the Baileys. But still good for all that. I’d love to know what the real numbers were in terms of increased sales subsequent to the free beer period.

My instincts (and hopes) are that there would have been a noticeable hike. The point being that the return on idea almost always exceeds expectations if you set out with an idea in the first place.