Welsh Whisky Wednesday

Penderyn asked us to get more novice whisky drinkers to try Penderyn whisky – no mean feat, when you consider the fact that, as a small, independent distiller, Penderyn puts its money into making some of the best whisky around rather than expensive marketing campaigns.

So, we came up with an offer drinkers couldn’t refuse – free whisky. With Brazil’s help, Penderyn teamed up with some of London’s coolest bars to offer free warming whisky every Wednesday, all winter long.

We started last week by putting bottles of ‘Welsh Gold’ behind the bar of The Albannach, traditionally a scotch fortress, and Mint Leaf Lounge, one of the City’s most classiest hangouts. How did it go? Well, in our experience, free whisky never fails to draw a crowd, and we warmed many Londoners’ hearts that night.

Just as importantly, London’s most important bloggers got in on the act too: Dwink, Hot-Dinners, Whisky for Everyone, Love Food Love Drink and Foodepedia to name but a few, loved the idea, and showed their support by telling their readers about it. It was also a huge hit on Twitter, and the #WelshWhiskyWednesday hashtag was used to get even more people involved. We’ll be running it all winter long, and who knows – if it continues to do so well, maybe we’ll be taking it further afield...

Meanwhile, check out www.twitter.com/penderynwhisky to find out where we’ll be serving up free Welsh gold this week – hope to see you there!

Brazil launches Oxford University Rugby Community event

Earlier this week, Brazil worked with the Oxford University Rugby Club to engage with the city’s public and generate interest in the oldest rugby club in England. The event saw Blues players showing off their skills on the streets of Oxford and engaging with local children to promote the grassroots game using a series of skills exercises.

Hundreds of tickets to the London Wasps match were given away to people who had never seen a rugby match before, and the club recorded bumper crowds for the match, attended by many from the next generation of rugby players.

SMO vs. SEO

Recently, we’ve heard commentators say that social media optimisation (SMO) is now becoming more important than traditional SEO. We think that’s untrue for the majority of markets and brands because, like it or not, Google still holds the key to their direct sales, leads and awareness on the internet.

Of course, it’s true that certain brands are moving more resources into social media and away from SEO, and you could make the case that ‘word of mouth’ is more trusted as a source of information than any other. Therefore it makes sense for brands to pay extremely close attention to what’s being said about them online and interact at the appropriate time, in an appropriate fashion – something we practice day in, day out here at Brazil for most of our clients (for an example of this, check out some of our work on social media with swiftcover.com).

Our opinion? Social media optimisation should not be seen as the be all and end all, neither should it be dismissed. The key thing to bear in mind is that all media is integrated, and as a result, there are very few successful online campaigns that don't utilize the unique and important values of other marketing disciplines such as advertising and public relations. Well, maybe a couple.