Among the ‘quirkier’ headlines this week, which included nappies that collect and send health data, a “Get le Girl” Lads holidaying app from Lynx, and a ‘hands free’ vibrator that works in conjunction with fantasy audio books, we saw a shining example of a brand taking a relatively obscure technology, and putting it to work effectively.
We’ve long admired the practical potential of controlling things using one’s mind (and a few electronic (EEG) sensors), but have seldom seen anything useful done with it in marketing. That’s until we saw Castle Lite, over in South Africa, deploy their Extra Cold Mind Reader. Set up in a busy bar, participants were invited to pour a beer by quite literally willing it to happen, in a Roald Dahl Matilda-style. The headset was geared up to detect concentration, emotions and facial expressions, so in amongst a sea of distractions, the user was to remain entirely focussed on the Castle beer. The longer they were able to do this, the more beer was poured.
A simple but effective way of winning an unrivalled amount of attention for the brand, and for plenty of beer drinkers, proof that dreams can come true…
