A Viral Marketer, An Orchestra, And A Brewmaster Walk Into A Bar…

Thanks to the seemingly endless creativity among the folks who marketing beer, Victoria Bitter (a brand in the Fosters chain commonly referred to as VB) launched a viral ad campaign toward the end of 2007 that featured 95 musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria performing solely on 451 VB bottles and 6 timpani. Composer Cezary Skubiszewski arranged the 40-year-old VB theme music and conducted the ensemble which recorded the video, featured to your right, at the Melbourne Concert Hall.

Much like the recent fascinating viral ad campaign from Ford Motor Company, VB has created a microsite where you can see a higher quality version of the video (but sadly, can't download it or embed it into a blog) as well as an entirely wonderful "behind the scenes" video which examines how the idea moved from concept to creation. The latter video features interviews with several Melbourne Symphony musicians as they discuss they very real challenges of making worthwhile music with beer bottles, as one unidentified musician explains,

Normally when you sort of [whop] play on a bottle, you don't expect to make anything more than just a sound. But actually having to produce a specific pitch at a specific time is really hard.

Of the musicians who identified themselves before speaking on the video, the majority were brass players (trumpet players in particular) and whether or not the folks editing the video were even the slightest bit aware of musician stereotypes, they made the add-on video that much more entertaining to folks inside the orchestra business. Along with the high resolution photos featured throughout this post, you can download a very nice ring tone featuring an excerpt of the VB Symphony's performance. It's already on my phone and yes, it's assigned to some brass player friends who are also Australian.

As a side note, once you've listened to the VB theme in the above video tell me it doesn't sound an awful lot like an inverted version of the theme to The Magnificent Seven. Just for fun, I put together a quick sound clip with excerpts from the original VB theme, followed by the theme to The Magnificent Seven, followed by the VB theme as performed by the VB Symphony. click to listen

From an administrative point of view, can you imagine how much beer you could sell from concert concessions if your orchestra took part in something like this? That should put a smile on the faces of more than a few CFOs. Overall, I have to say the ad campaign is pretty effective. I'm not a big beer drinker but after watching the vids I really want to have a VB after work.  I also want to go to a Melbourne Symphony concert.

Thanks to a special reader for pointing the video out to me earlier this week!

Comments

[Jason Heath]

Ha! This is awesome. It's great that they actually used Melbourne Symphony musicians for this video.

[Kara Whittington]

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

This is exactly the type of viral marketing and guerilla tactics that arts organizations need to look at and emulate. And, working with a company (or I believe a Sponsor) to front the cost.

Brilliant!