I spent New Year's Day cruising around town documenting some of the sweet rides found on the streets here...typified by the kind of shabby chic I love. Happy New Year from coBRANDiT!

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.

Documentation of local flavor: this is the packie (package liquor store) we procure our alcoholic goods in, Boston accent and all. But who's the mystery man? Whitey Bulger?

Here's the deal: Recently we've been doing more consulting on web video and social media than actually PRODUCING web video and social media. Also it's now officially summertime, and we want to be on vacation (or at least sitting on our butts and drinking beer). With these factors in mind we've decided to simplify our approach... we're going thru the archives looking for pieces we've made previous summers, and looking at these pieces with fresh eyes. A so we present: BEARHOG. A look at the construction of a motorized raft from June 2004.

We also plan to shoot some very loose video (in an ethnograpaphic vein) capturing elements of our 2006 summer experiences. Stay tuned.

This is what happens when you fish off a rail bridge in Somerville, Mass.