Coors Light Offers the Race to Refreshment

Are you looking for ways to leverage a beverage company around an endurance-related event? Are you looking for new ways to integrate alcoholic beverage companies?

Coors Light is capitalizing on the buzz around the 2009 ING New York City Marathon by partnering with the New York Road Runners to offer a creative "Race to Refreshment" promotion for NYC residents and visiters to enjoy. The promotion enables consumers who stop in ten (10) participating establishments across the NYC boroughs to receive a commemorative medal for finishing.

At each stop, participants must collect two (2) official Race to Refreshment stickers from each of the five (5) boroughs and securely place them on an official pamphlet. Once all ten (10) stickers have been received, consumers are asked to mail the form to a stated address and allow 12-14 weeks for the delivery of their exclusive medal. Coors Light distributors and participating locations will run the promotion from September 15th through November 8th.

As the Official Beer Sponsor of the ING New York City Marathon, Coors Light will also offer "refreshment as cold as the Rockies" to race participants and fans at post-race parties across Manhattan and provide beer for official hospitality events leading up to the race on November 1st.

Check out the promotional pamphlet information below:

Beer Cup Snakes are Taking Over Cricket...

Are you looking for ways to leverage an official beer sponsor? Are you interested in learning about game entertainment tactics that are popular across the globe?

Cricket fans across the globe - from London, England to Melbourne, Australia - have become infatuated with one of the most unlikely forms of entertainment at cricket matches they attend: Beer Cup Snakes. What the wave is to traditional American sports, the beer cup snake is to the game of cricket.

Fans in the stands at cricket matches make the beer snakes with thousands of empty beer cups, usually sold at concessions stands location within the stadium. The longest beer cup snake was formed at the WACA ground in Perth, Western Australia on New Years Eve 2008. The snake was 45 meters long (50 yards), measuring the length of the Inverarity Stand at the venue.

Once a beer cup snake is formed, fans seated in the crowd try to lift it skyward to make it dance (as if being charmed). However, while beer cup snakes have proven to be extremely popular with cricket attendees, they are often frowned upon by the stadium's security personnel.

What is the significance here for U.S. sports marketers?

1. Do not be surprised if beer cup snakes become a new trend in the United States (it is only a matter of time)
2. Consider ways that the concept of the beer cup snake can be applied to in-game promotions.Beverage partners could consider creating an interactive challenge in-venue where two (2) competing sections have to pass a beer cup snake (a chain of empty cups) down the section to win X prize

The videos below capture the art of the beer cup snake in action: