Caribbean Marketing Mix, September 17

Here’s our own roundup and commentary on what’s been happening in marketing in the Caribbean so far during the month of September.

BEER OF BARBADOS. Banks (Barbados) Breweries kicked off celebrations of its 50th anniversary on September 6 with a one-day, island-wide promotion on its flagship product, Banks Beer.

Bajans were able to get a cold one for just 50 cents, said to be the same price that a Banks retailed for when the brewery started operations in 1961. Special vouchers were distributed in that day’s newspapers and consumers soaked up the nostalgia at bars and rumshops well into the night—no doubt generating lots of goodwill for the brand.

Banks Breweries has since begun a series of full-page newspaper advertorials that celebrate the company’s achievements as well as its social contribution in areas such as sport, culture and barroom décor, i.e. its calendar girls. (No doubt the company leveraged all of the extra news- papers it helped to sell during the one-day special to help pay for the press.) 

We join with them in saying, “Cheers to 50 years” and look forward to what the rest of this anniversary year will bring.

HEALTHY CARIBBEAN. The Healthy Caribbean Coalition received half a million text messages of support from across the region during its “Get the Message” media campaign to raise awareness for action to combat chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCD). The Coalition aimed to mobilize wide social support in preparation for the region’s participation at the United Nations Summit on CNCD’s to be held during the week of September 19 in New York.

JAMAICA TOURISM. Jamaica plans to mount an “aggressive” marketing campaign in China to boost travel between the two countries. So said Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, while he attended the China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Co-operation Forum held last week in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

LIAT CABIN ADVERTISING. LIAT the Caribbean airline has introduced cabin advertising aboard its aircraft. The airline is partnering with Global Onboard Partners, based in Atlanta, to offer clients—such as Dominica’s tourism agency—advertising space on its seat backs. See our earlier post here.

NETFLIX COMES TO THE CARIBBEAN. Netflix launched its internet movie streaming service in Latin America and the Caribbean on September 5. Beginning in Brazil, the company says that it rolled out service to 43 countries and territories during the first week of September. The monthly subscription is US $7.99 (same price as in the domestic U.S.) with a “try before you buy” offer for the first month.

Netflix’s service in the US is reported to already account for nearly one-quarter of the traffic over the internet there during peak times. Will demand here in the English-speaking Caribbean proceed to choke the bandwidth of the region’s telcos (who have their own internet TV services in the works)? How will it impact patronage of local cinemas and DVD sale and rental businesses—both legal and bootleg? And will everything we watch be dubbed into Spanish?

Let the show begin and we’ll find out. (You can read this piece by Michele Marius for more details and analysis.)

REDjet TO JAMAICA. The new low-cost airline REDjet initiated flights between Trinidad and Guyana and announced that it will begin flying to Jamaica from November. Meanwhile, competition continues to translate into better deals for travelers, with both LIAT and Caribbean Airlines continuing to promote their own low fares and discount specials.

RED STRIPE. Beer is hot (only in a figurative sense, thankfully) right now at both ends of the Caribbean. Red Stripe, the iconic Jamaican brand, is shaking things up at home with a new advertising campaign devised by Prism Communications. It’s built around the character RED, a Jamaican brown bear who just loves drinking Red Stripe.

You’re probably smiling at the thought already, and that’s the point. The campaign is meant to be different, funny—have you ever seen a bear bogle to dancehall music?—and it seems to be attracting attention: the Facebook page already has more than 12,000 fans and the series of commercials on YouTube has been viewed thousands of times. RED the bear has his own Twitter account.

Red Stripe is attempting to appeal to a younger demographic and is thus making social media the interactive centerpiece of this campaign. It’s interesting that both they and Banks Breweries in Barbados have each clearly tried to create an appealing and engaging Facebook presence for their brand but have not reflected their new campaigns on their main brand websites. This is a trend that we’ll probably see more of as businesses opt to put fewer resources into maintaining “static” presences on the web.

Here’s my own favourite RED commercial so far but go on and take a look at the whole series:

SCOTIABANK AERO. Scotiabank introduced its AERO Platinum MasterCard credit cards in Barbados, Jamaica, Belize and Turks & Caicos, and Platinum VISA Card in Trinidad & Tobago.The card comes with a new travel rewards programme, AERO* Rewards. Cardholders can earn points that may be redeemed for not only air miles—on any airline—but also towards hotel stays, car rentals, cruises and more.