A cool idea which does not really work.
12.02.2010
In February 2009 we launched zeitgeist, our contemporary spin on the classic and somewhat forgotten black lager style. Our idiosyncratic black lager has been selling well and has received some great feedback.
It is now 8 months after we launched the website www.zeitgeistbeer.com to support and promote the beer and the brand. The key idea behind the website was that the blog was going to be open, this was not going to be zeitgeist’s blog but the people’s blog. We wanted to give up control of the zeitgeist blog to the people who drink the beer. The open blog on a commercial website concept is unique and an untried and untested approach, we thought this was a really neat concept. Anyone can go to www.zeitgeistbeer.com and by simply registering can upload a blog about anything they want: beer, art, music, films, whatever. It was hoped that the site would also provide a platform for young artists to showcase their work and upload their music. Bloggers can upload up to 10 images and videos on the website. Website hits, due mostly to the solid sales, have been great at around 1,000 per day so there is definitely a platform there for people to use.
However this has not been happening, with a few notable and intermittent exceptions almost no-one has been taking advantage of the free and open blog and most of the items have been posted by ourselves.
So we are looking for your feedback. Why has this concept not worked and what can we do to make it work? Any thoughts, ideas and suggestions would be appreciated!
You can post your thoughts as comments here or you can upload a blog to http://www.zeitgeistbeer.com/blog
Posted in - business-for-punks
Comments
- Wheres the reward? Give the best blog every quarter 4 beers with next order
Best/most comments/rating a beer with next order?
Community rewards, virtual or real will help drive return visits and turn those into contributors HanTot14.02.2010
- if i buy 12 bottles of zeitgeist from the zeitgeist site its 12 pound, if i buy from the brewdog site is 14 pound, how come? paul noonan12.02.2010
- People don`t see why they should have to become part of your marketing strategy. There are numerous ways to showcase work online and off, which will get people noticed (so long as they`re good enough).
You need to give people a good reason to want to associate themselves with you, 1000 hits a day is lovely, but does it really make up for being linked to a brand of beer that only appeals to a very select consumer group. Why are you confident that there is a correlation between Zeitgeist consumers and an interest in contemporary arts?
I drink it because I like the beer. I don`t care about the pretty label (unless there is a girl who`s interested...). Fair enough I first bought your products because of their marketing, but I keep buying them because of whats in the bottle. Maybe your labeling appeals to arty types, but your beer doesn`t? It is complicated stuff (in a good way) and requires a little work on the part of the drinker. It is a massive leap for the average larger drinker.
Perhaps the people who want to make the posts you want to see don`t believe that the people who they want to see their work will be regularly looking at the Zeitgeist blog? Can they rely on anyone coming back more than once even if the beer is not their cup of tea?
Your marketing strategy appears to be working well, but the Zeitgeist blog was maybe taking it a little far. Give an incentive to people to post on it. Offer a free case of beer for posting work which you particularly like. Present yourselves as patron`s of the arts, rather than a couple of freeloaders. Jimbeaux12.02.2010
- A link from this website (from the toolbar at the top), as I think not enough people know about the website yet. Possibly more competitions as well will keep audience interest. And hopefully some new (maybe stronger) zeitgeist beers in the future. Heather Brennan12.02.2010
- Why blog? I have zeitgeist to drink Mark12.02.2010
- I think it might be a chicken and egg type problem: no one bothers posting anything when there isn`t much of an audience and you can`t get an audience without some decent content.
Luckily I think this is one of the many problems that can be solved with beer: offer some as a prize for the best post every month. You can measure best in a load of different ways: most comments, most read, as judged by someone, voting by the people reading... Robert McWilliam12.02.2010
- Just heard about it and I think that is the biggest problem, to few know about this site and service. Nice concept, give it some time and hopefully it will spin-off in something great. Jonas12.02.2010
- I`d say it`s because anyone can set up their own blog, for free, and have complete control over it -- there`s no reason to use someone else`s.
I`d imagine creative types will first of all want their work displayed in an environment that they`ve designed for it, and are possibly rather wary of their work acting essentially as free advertising for a commercial product. The Beer Nut12.02.2010
- not being a blogger and only just finding out about it . Give it time ... BradfordDave12.02.2010