Strongbow rounded off a summer of festival action with a huge live activation at Victorious Festival in Portsmouth over the weekend of August 26^th/27^th.

The iconic cider brand created a massive arena with a 10m high Strongbow Archer as the centrepiece. Surrounded by a DJ booth made from speakers, a bar made from a shipping container and up-cycled furniture made from crates and barrels, The Strongbow Yard was designed for fans to chill out in the day and dance by night.

Emma Sherwood-Smith, brand director for cider at Strongbow owner Heineken, says: “From years of festival experience, we know people want to create amazing memories with their mates. As the most eye-catching landmark on site, The Strongbow Yard is the best place to meet friends and relax with a refreshing pint, making the most of their time between bands. Curated by credible British DJs, the music sets the atmosphere, changing the tempo throughout the day. As the sun sets we step things up with an impressive music-synchronised fire display until the end of the night.”

In a new collaboration with Strongbow for Victorious Festival, Radio X also broadcast live from The Strongbow Yard with DJs including Johnny Vaughan and Gordon Smart, extending the reach of the festival beyond those attending.

The Victorious Festival activation concluded months of Strongbow campaign activity aimed at helping people get the most out of their festival experiences. In April, special promotional packs of Strongbow Original, Cloudy Apple and Dark Fruit ciders started rolling out in stores across the UK, directing people to enter the Strongbow Epic Entrance competition. Nine competition winners and their friends were then parachuted, paraded and power-boated into their chosen festival in style.

At Victorious Festival, the third and final festival in Strongbow’s integrated campaign, three Epic Entrances took place with competition winners be dressed in mermaid, Queen of Hearts and 1990s rave attire, with entourages ranging from sumo wrestlers to gold Strongbow men. All parties were chaperoned through the festival site ending at The Strongbow Yard to sample the brand.

Strongbow worked with Initials, a leading independent integrated agency, across both The Strongbow Yard and the Epic Entrance campaign.

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Heineken cider brand Strongbow is offering the chance to win a ‘Make an Epic Festival Entrance’ prize package worth up to £10,000, including entrance to the selected festival for six people plus tents for accomodation.

The challenge is to come up with an imaginative way to arrive at any of the three UK festivals Strongbow is sponsoring this year — Isle of Wight, Kendal Calling and Victorious.

There are also thousands of festival-themed prizes to be won, including tents, sleeping bags, Bluetooth speakers, Pac a Macs and phone chargers.

To enter, consumers have to buy a promotional pack, then go to the website uk.strongbow.com/epicentrance/ and input the batch code from the packaging and their contact details. They then need to select: how they want to arrive at the festival (choosing from a menu of options including hovercraft, helicopter, parachute, and police car, or coming up with their own idea); how they want to be dressed (again choosing from a pre-populated list including options such as cowboy, astronaut, alien, mermaid, pirate and pumpkin – or their own suggestion); and what kind of entourage they want (bodyguards, dancers, stilt-walkers, sumo wrestlers and the like).

They then have to say in a maximum of 50 words what they would consider to be an epic festival entrance.

A draw will select 200 entries each for Kendal Calling and Victorious. A judging panel consisting of representatives of Strongbow, Initials (the agency which has created the promotion for Heineken), and the festivals will select three winners for each of these two festivals using the following criteria:

• Does this entry have what it takes to create the impact to Make an Epic Festival Entrance?
• Does this entry show the personality of the winner and their mates?
• Does this entry stand out from the crowd?

Kendal Calling takes place from July 27-30 while Victorious takes place August 25-27. The promotion actually launched in April, and two winners for the Isle of Wight festival (which takes place this weekend) have already been selected randomly.

The promotion is featured across 10-pack cans in Original, Dark Fruit and Cloudy Apple varieties, as well as across 12-pack cans and 20-pack cans in Strongbow Original.

Toby Lancaster, category and shopper marketing director at Heineken, says: “Cut-through on-pack promotions such as this give retailers the opportunity to drive excitement in the category and encourage shoppers to make the most of the summer events.”

Each Epic Festival Entrance prize is worth up to £10,000, including return transportation for the winner and five of nominated friends (all of whom must be aged 18 or over) to the festival, weekend camping tickets including three two man tents and six sleeping bags for the Isle of Wight and Victorious and a Tipi and six sleeping bags for Kendal Calling.

In addition to the eight ‘Epic Festival Entrance’ packages, five prize draws have been scheduled to take place during the promotional period. In total, the prize draw prize pool includes 100 two man tents, 150 sleeping bags, 300 Bluetooth speakers, 600 Pac a Macs and 1,000 mobile phone chargers.

‘Epic Festival Entrance’ winners and guests who are over 25 years of age and look over 25 years of age will be required to participate in publicity. The age specification is to comply with the CAP Code, the rules governing advertising and marketing in the UK, which ban people who are or who look under 25 from appearing in marketing communications which the brand controls.

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Strongbow – the UK’s number one cider brand – has launched a multi-million pound campaign as part of its exclusive sponsorship of Team GB ahead of Rio 2016, including an on-pack competition to win limited edition glasses.

The ‘Let’s Own It’ integrated campaign issues a rallying cry to the nation to get together and roar on Team GB this summer. The campaign will run across a range of media channels including TV, out of home, video on demand, radio, digital and social.

The new TV ad will run from July 14th and will kick off a six week campaign across the nation with a stirring 30-second spot that highlights the tension, excitement and elation of cheering on Team GB.

Out Of Home advertising will ignite the emotions of supporters, featuring the most captivating elements of the games; unity, tension and the thrill of being lost in the moment.

Strongbow’s British heritage and brand values of pride, unity and respect make it a perfect fit with the Team GB ethos. Whilst all eyes are on Rio, Strongbow is firmly positioning itself at the heart of the action with the fans in the UK.

Cindy Tervoort, marketing director at brand owners Heineken, said: “We want to bring back the excitement we all felt during London 2012 and rally the nation to get behind Team GB. The pride and enthusiasm we experienced as a nation in 2012 was incredibly special, and we anticipate that our campaign will help the nation feel it once again.”

This is the first campaign to run across all Strongbow variants which include Strongbow Original, Strongbow Dark Fruit and Strongbow Cloudy Apple. It is supported in-store with special Team GB packaging across the whole range as well as a chance for consumers to win limited edition Strongbow Cloudy Apple pint glasses.

The new TV commercial can be viewed on Strongbow UK’s YouTube channel.

Headquartered in Edinburgh, Heineken employs around 2,000 people. In addition to being Britain’s leading cider and beer business, the company owns around 1,100 pubs through its Star Pubs & Bars business. Its portfolio of brands includes Foster’s, Heineken, Strongbow, Desperados, Kronenbourg1664, John Smith’s and Bulmers, plus backed by a full range of niche and specialty brands

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Strongbow is launching a “Night of The Zombies” on-trade promotion, offering consumers the chance to win Zombie experiences and Smart TV and Zombie movie packages.

Halloween is now worth an estimated £300m to pubs and bars and is seen as the third most important calendar occasion after Christmas and summer.

Following the success of last year’s Strongbow ‘Saint or Sinner’ campaign, the ‘Night of The Zombies’ promotion is set to run in 10,000 pubs and bars.

The campaign was created by integrated agency whynot! and runs until the 10th November nationwide.

Venues are being provided with Halloween kits including spider’s webs, Zombie caution tape and visibility-driving POS materials.

There are also over 3 million promotional scratchcards (300 per venue) which will be handed out with every pint of Strongbow bought (maximum two per person).

All scratchcards will entitle the consumer to discount vouchers off purchases from Prezzybox.com or Red Letter Days. Some give ‘instant win’ prizes  including t-shirts and tattoo sleeves and reward of some kind and also to the chance to win a major prize bundle. t-shirts and tattoo sleeves can be claimed from the bar.

To claim voucher rewards, consumers need to go online to www.facebook.com/strongbowuk or strongbowhalloween.com and enter their unique code and contact details.

All scratch card recipients can also enter online for the chance to become a “Winning Moment” prize winner.  To enter, they need to go online to Facebook or the competition site and enter their unique code and contact details.

There are a maximum of 75 prize bundles on offer including Ultimate Zombie Survival Kits which include three Zombie DVDs, a Zombie survival guide and a crate of Strongbow, Red Letter Day experiences including Military Activity Experiences and Zombie Battle Bunker Experiences, three Samsung 48″ 6 Series Smart Ultra HD 4K Curved LED TV plus four Zombie films on DVD and 20 Xbox One games consoles with one Zombie game.

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