Last night I tried AC Golden’s (aka Coors) Colorado Native Lager. The beer itself isn't bad and reminded me a bit of a hoppier Killian’s Irish Red. It’s got a nice amber color and a crisp lager taste. You can taste the sweetness of the malts and it’s balanced nicely with some hop bitterness.
At more than $9 for a six pack, it’s priced at the same price, or even a little higher, than most craft-brewed beers, and too be honest, if I’m going to spend nine bucks on beer, I’ll probably buy something with a bit more character.
The main reason I wanted to try this wasn’t for the beer, but for the social media and mobile marketing that accompanied it. While I think it’s a great effort, it falls short.
Here’s why. Each bottle, and the package has a “SnapTag” that you’re supposed to take a picture of and then SMS to a phone number. The problem I had is that had I not read about this, there’s no way I would have ever known what to do. In fact, even after I knew what do to, I had a hard time figuring it out.
The reason I couldn’t figure it out was that there were no instructions on the box telling me what to do. Even after I took a picture of the SnapTag, which just looks like the beer’s logo, I was stumped. Only after I really looked closely, did I see a phone number written on the SnapTag. I tentatively sent the picture via MMS to the phone number and it worked.
A sentence near the SnapTag that says, “Snap a photo with your phone and send it to 303-xxx-xxxx to start the conversation.” would make it all make sense.
A QR code would also have been a better choice, since you can configure them to automatically trigger an SMS. Although depending on the phone, people might need to download an app to use it.
As soon as I figured out what do to, I got a text back asking for my age. I replied and got another series of texts back telling me, “Colorado Native is born, brewed & shared locally. It is also the only beer you can talk to. Respond with A, B, or C etc to join the conversation. A) Why R U a Native? B What will you admit? C) Where R U enjoying a Colorado Native D) Sports E) Colorado Trivia F) Would you Rather…? G) Pop Culture H) Colorado Tidbits I) I never…”
The way some of these options are phrased, I thought maybe I should reply with my answer to the question. After re-reading the text, I replied with “H” for Colorado Tidbits and got this text back: “Have you checked out the drive on Central City Parkway? If not, check out our facebook page with more info. If so, next time you are on the parkway snap a picture and post on our facebook wall for other natives. Give us some tidbits on our facebook page: http://bit.ly/ColoradoNativeLager or snap again to continue the conversation.”
So that was kind of cool. Although, in my book there’s really nothing special about the Central City Parkway. Once again, I was confused about what to do. I finally figured out that I was supposed to take another picture of the code to play again.
I noticed that the SnapTag on the bottles was different than the one on the package - the dots on the circle were in different places. When I sent in that one, nothing happened for a few minutes, then I got the same text as before.
Based on the text I got, I’m not sure if I will go through all the options, but I did enjoy interacting with the brand in that way. Now that I’m signed up, we’ll see what kind of texts they send me in the future.
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