The Brief:
Craft brewer Flying Dog has an ambitious social media program; they aim to be the most web 2.0 savvy brewer online. The goal is to communicate with home brewers, beer drinkers, and aficionados in the environments where they live, and to create and place content in easily sharable formats. Video is a clear part of the mix.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
coBRANDiT traveled to Flying Dog HQ in Denver, CO for 2 week long taping sessions; one in the winter and one in the summer. While in Colorado we documented the brewhouse, interviewing brewery founders, the head brew master, bottlers, and other staff; the brewery Superbowl retreat in Steamboat, a road trip to Flying Dog’s original location in Aspen, and various staff interactions and brewery events. The results were edited into a year’s worth of bi-weekly video which was distributed on various sharing sites, and on a vlog we built and continue to manage. We also developed and distributed a video widget that brought the entire series to embedded locations. In addition we worked with FD marketing on how best to integrate our activities with event, advertising and packaging initiatives, tying it all together with an outreach strategy that incorporated all elements of the program.

SNCR recognized our work with the 2007 Award of Excellence in the Corporate Video category, a full case study can be seen here.

“The guys at coBRANDiT are forward thinkers. They’re constantly analyzing new and current social media technologies to present to clients and integrate into their marketing efforts. They love this stuff.” –Neal Stewart, Prime Minister of Marketing

**Note: Neal was formerly the Brand Manager for Pabst Blue Ribbon, and in that role became coBRANDiT’s first client. We produced a series of PBR neighborhood interviews for him in exchange for beer. The story was written up by Rob Walker in Inc. magazine, August 2004. That’s what put us on the map.

We're pleased to announce that our work on behalf of Flying Dog Brewery has been honored with a Society for New Communications Research Award of Excellence in the Corporate Video category. Here's a link to the case study. You might not think lo-grade video from my cell phone counts as excellence in new communication, but here it is:

Yes, the award is a huge cut glass paperweight.

Jesse and I are heading out to Flying Dog land tomorrow to continue our brewery series. We'll be getting out of Denver for a visit to Gonzo ground zero: Woody Creek Colorado. We'll be getting the Flying Dog story from founders George Stranahan and Richard McIntyre and otherwise trying to capture the essence of what makes Woody Creek and Flying Dog so special. The image above is from George's photoblog; here's his descriptive text:

The Wagoneer

One lady friend left her Wagoneer behind Hunter’s house; perhaps thinking it would be there when she returned, perhaps thinking she would come and take it away some day. The Wagoneer stayed through more than a winter, and one day Hunter called me and barked, “Bring down some dynamite, a lot of it.”

Well, I did that, and we sat in his kitchen drinking whiskey as he described his need to eliminate the Wagoneer from his view and from his memory; there were fist poundings and many loud “Goddammits,” and more whiskey.

After a while it became time to act; there’s some discrimination required when mixing whiskey and dynamite. Hunter hauled up a 25 lb canister of gunpowder from the war room and we went to work. 7 sticks of dynamite were placed head to toe from mid-engine back to the firewall, the gunpowder placed in the drivers seat. My fuse burns roughly 10 seconds per inch, I jammed 18 inches into the blasting cap and crimped it with my teeth.

My rule is “walk, don’t run,” and I made it down to the picnic table with about a minute of fuse left. I don’t look at my watch, the vagaries of fuse chemistry ensure that the explosion will always come as a complete surprise, which it did.

We were barely 100 yards from the blast and the shock wave knocked the wind out of our lungs yet we “Yheehaaaed!” hugged and clapped each other on our backs. When haying that fall I found a fender that had sailed over our heads and a further 300 yards, almost to Woody Creek.

Flying Dog President Eric Warner appeared on Denver's CBS4 news program to discuss beer alcohol by volume. Is Guinness stronger than Bud Light? Nope.

"The strength in beer comes from how much grain you put in, not the color of the grain," Warner said. "Alcohol actually has, contributes a flavor and a lot of times what you're doing in the brewing process to create more alcohol, you're going to get more flavor out of it as well."

Warner said there seems to be demand for higher alcohol beers right now and his company is responding with some heavyweights.

This video is pure experiment. How many hits will it get on YouTube (and how quickly) by having a picture of a woman as the thumbnail image and the word "ass" in the title? So far in one day it's surpassed the video I put up 2 weeks ago...

Description: Flashback to 2/07. Flying Dog Brewery winnebago ride down the mountain into Steamboat Springs, CO. Danada gets out at the top of the pass in a blizzard to take a leak. Rippe gets us lost, walks into the wrong house. Impromptu party in the driveway, beer and cigarettes. But wait! Whose naked ass is that hanging out of the hot tub?

Or maybe they've just ramped up the marketing. Anyway, I just got an email from Apple TV and it sure is cool to see that the first thing they give you to link to is video podcasts...and they're not all from the networks either.

Related note: The Flying Dog podcast is now live...

I made a flag for the Flying Dog mission, and we attempted to fly it at Steamboat. It was too long and got all tangly, plus the conditions were not optimal. Oh well, there's always attempt 2...

We're now back in Boston with nearly 30 hours of Flying Dog Brewery footage. We spent 4 days in Denver shooting the brewery people and processes, and 3 days over superbowl weekend at a lodge in Steamboat Springs, CO where the entire brewery staff retreated for a few days of fun. There's much in the works...stay tuned.