san miguel beer Oktoberfest - brand building or community relations destruction?

WAWAM! is a great supporter and believer of events for brands. when done properly - with executional flair and strategically well thought out, it can build brand equity and create great consumer excitement.

events also work better if they are big and grand in scope. this is no different from other marketing efforts, great ideas should be seen and felt by as many of it's target market. in fact for events, big and grand is a bigger need than compared to other marketing efforts.

most events, like the oktoberfest, are intrusive in nature. and that is where this san miguel event failed, intrusive in a different way.

while it did well for san miguel beer, they got what they wanted - 15,000 participants, guinness world record possibly broken and lots of press coverage day after, including front page coverage like this news article, BUT - the event also inconvenienced the city and neighborhood where they held it.

to hold the event, they closed two streets - the long one in front of their headquarters and the smaller street beside their building. they closed these streets since tuesday or wednesday last week. they held the event last Friday.

the san miguel office is located in one of the busiest streets in that part of the commercial district in pasig city. both are actually main streets - they are the main access roads from pasig to EDSA and SM Megamall. closing one side of the road, they removed 50% of the access road and they did cause monumental traffic in the area. cars coming from pasig going through julio vargas st. took 45 minutes to more than 1 hour to go to EDSA or megamall.

these streets are public roads, for the use of the public, san miguel corporation do not own these roads where they can do anything in their property. i completely disagree with a company who conducts it's brand building event and in the process inconvenience the public in general. that is not good corporate citizenship.

is there a particular brand equity building reason why they needed to do the event in front of their corporate headquarters? i don't think there is. if there is, i don't think it matters to consumers. they could have held it in a stadium like the Ultra in pasig, close to their headquarters or in MOA, by the bay where they already own the boardwalk. i don't think it could have mattered if they held it in MOA or at the Ultra, people would have come just the same and the city would have not been inconvenienced.

it's hard to understand why a corporate giant like san miguel whose sense of social responsibility is keen will do something like that. worst, why did the local government officials allow this to happen? the local government officials' mandate, the very reason they were elected into office is to serve the people. but in this case, they seem to have served san miguel corporation acting like they were employees of the company and disregarded the people they were supposed to serve.

an evening's event affected the lives of thousands of commuters and car owners who use that road for 4 whole days! that sounds very uncaring and yes it's a WAWAM!

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15,000 toast world’s longest beer bar
By Beverly T. Natividad

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 01:57:00 09/07/2008

MANILA, Philippines—In Heaven, there is no beer.

That’s why last Friday, more than 15,000 people flocked to San Miguel Avenue in Mandaluyong City to celebrate the country’s famous brew with the annual Oktoberfest and at the same time set two Guinness world records.

Barricaded with a long line of steel sheets, the whole length of San Miguel Avenue, from the intersections of Lourdes to Julia Vargas Streets, was transformed into a 603.5-meter-long beer bar complete with four concert stages.

This beer bar has toppled the Guinness record for the longest bar (220 meters) held by Taiwan.

article parsed, read in full here : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080907-159163/15000-toast-worlds-longest-beer-bar