Guldfinger, you're the one...

Beer marketing lacking innovation? This is only to be expected, as brands are limited to the amount of work they can do in the retailer's own space. Available touch points are limited to bottle labelling, beer mats, and occasionally the odd poster in the bar.

Marketing opportunities within a bar or club have probably been developed to their full potential, and patrons of bars have become extremely used to seeing the same old ideas.

However, Swedish beer brand Norrlands Guld recognised that when people, particularly men, gather in groups in a bar or pub, they enjoy a healthy amount of competitiveness amongst their social circle.

'Is it your round or mine?'

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Norrlands Guld (NG) wanted to position itself right in the middle of these social groups, amongst the bragging, the ribbing and the competition. A common topic of discussion amongst these groups is "whose round is it next?" NG decided to become the arbiter of this debate, and provide a tool that would settle the discussion, provide entertainment for the group, and most importantly for the brand, encourage another trip to the bar.

The result was an app called Goldfinger, a game of nerves and reaction that makes use of touch-screen technology. Players place one finger each on the image of an NG bottle cap. When a light at the centre of the screen changes from red to green, players remove their finger as fast as they can, hopefully faster than their friends can.

The app calculates reaction times and identifies the slowest person, and the loser is nominated to buy the next round, and no doubt suffer the gentle ribbing from their triumphant friends.

The results:

To date (Feb 2011) 137 000 games have been played, with an average three players per round.

The 20 500 downloads have resulted in over 400 000 points of contact with the Norrlands Guld brand. The app was built with functionality that allowed the brand to connect with customers and develop loyalty schemes in the future.