"Free beer for review!" said the email....


I don't drink, but I always love to see how products are marketed. I'll write a review, I said, after I get a friend or two to sample the beer, which, strangely, wasn't named in the pitch.
The next day, a box arrives, containing this ridiculous case, which Benny enjoyed immensely. Inside which there is a single cold bottle of Heineken Premiumn Light Beer and an expensive Heineken bottle opener. It didn't contain a glass, which would have made sense.
My friend Anthony Tomari gamely volunteered to test the beer. His review:

It's smooth. It has no after taste. It's as good as regular Heineken, but it's unremarkable and indistinguishable from any other American beer.
My review:
What a dumbass, wasteful way to package a single bottle of beer. For the right way to send out alcohol samples. see Stormhoek.
For the money wasted on this stupid package (made in China, by the way) which I will throw out, they should have sent a six-pack of beer.
If you believe that the beer is good, let it speak for itself. If it's good, you don't have to hide it. If it's good, you don't have to send a huge press kit. If it's good, you just lead people to it and let them

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A Silly Way to Give Away Beer

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B.L. Ochman is a social media marketing strategist for S&P 500 companies, including McGraw Hill, IBM, Cendant, and American Greetings. She publishes What's Next Blog and Ethics Crisis, where readers can confess their worst ethics transgressions and others can rate them on a scale of one to ten. She also blogs for MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog.