Magic Hat: Put the bong down and get some original ideas!

I just got the most recent Magic Hat Brewery newsletter. Overall, I think their newsletter design is pretty slick, and their promotions are pretty solid – centered around music mostly. They also celebrate their #9 Apricot beer on 9/9 every year. I can’t say that #9 is my favorite brew, but I know they sell a crap-load of it. If this is your most iconic SKU, wouldn’t you think that it would be alright to pump some marketing dollars into developing a unique giveaway? Apparently, the Vermont brewery doesn’t think so.

Magic Hat is giving away a #9 cruiser bike.

I know they don’t sell New Belgium up in Vermont yet, but the cruiser is absolutely New Belgium’s marketing territory. In fact, NBB is giving away a cruiser a day on their facebook page (which, as they reminded us about a hundred times last week, has past 100,000 fans – but that’s a different post altogether). To top it off, it looks like Magic Hat is giving away a single cruiser.

I wanted to check out their site to look into the details of this lackluster and uninspiring promotion, but their site is obscenely slow, and I have to apparently log in to even see what the promotion is. I’m not going to take 3 minutes to set up an account  just to see if this is a good or bad promotion. And I bet they’re missing out on a shit load of consumers who think the same way as me.

If I were doing this promotion, I’d drive consumers towards a social network that they already use, like Facebook. We’re all basically logged into Facebook all the time anyway, right? And I would come up with a unique giveaway that would build the #9 brand. In just a couple minutes, here are better giveaways I came up with:

  • A year’s supply of apricots for 20 winners
  • 10 tickets + airfare to the #9 9/9 event at the Brewery
  • Help brew a batch of #9 and take 9 cases of #9 home
  • A Magic Hat – some cool hat that you can put on your wall/car/fridge to show off your Magic Hat awesomeness

So these aren’t the greatest, but I came up with four on-brand giveaways in 2 minutes that would build the Magic Hat brand, not just copy another brewery’s most iconic swag item. So put that bong down, Magic Hat’s marketing department and hire some more creative people for your department.

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Written by on Thu, July 29 2010 » Marketing

  • Nor'easter Beer

    I am just coming across this blog, but it does not appear to be current - is there another site?
    We are planning a brewery in Northeastern USA called Nor'easter Brewing Company LLC and are conducting diligence. Anything you can assist us with is much appreciated.
    http://www.noreasterbrewing.co...

  • So I heard they might be bought out by NAB any day now, which will definitely change a bunch of things. I'm not a fan of Magic Hat since they sued Georgetown brewery for having a 9 on their label for their beer 9lb porter. The lawyers aren't smoking anything. They usually have an okay product not a wow. As a small brewery startup owner I really like your feedback on their website and enjoyed your article by it's directness. Times are changing in the Craft Brew world indeed and folks need to be different and keep up.

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