SoBe Summer Fridays + Some Advertising Talk
It is drink-o-mania time in NYC this summer. We had the Bicardi B-Live and Dos Equis events last week. This week – we have a non-alcoholic drink throwing down with some hot acts. 
In order to promote it’s new zero calorie product line and the introduction of its latest flavors — Acai Fruit Punch and Mango Melon — PepsiCo’s SoBe has developed a serious marketing campaign, which you should be prepared to see a lot of this summer.
Free sampling has already begun – they were all out on Bedford Ave in the Burg today.
One of the highlights is SoBe Summer Fridays, weekly parties in the NYC featuring rotating partners and themes each week, launching this Friday, June 26th. This weeks extravaganza will be hosted by the Eldridge and Epiphany Media. They have quite the line up, unfortunately it’s an invite only, but peep below anyway:
SoBe Summer Fridays: FRIDAY, JUNE 26th, 1:00pm.
DAY:
1:00pm to 8:00pm: DJ M.O.S. with a Live Performance by ASHER ROTH
(catering provided by Delicatessen, partners NBC, Universal, EA Sports & Ketel One with Scatch Academy DJ Lessons)
NIGHT:
10:00pm to 1:00am DJ Paul Sevigny with a Live Performance by ROBIN THICKE
AFTER-PARTY:
1:00am to 4:00am Official After-Party at The Eldridge with DJ Center
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I am not sure what else they have lined up, but I do see that on August 7th they are doing something with DJ Berrie (swoon) and DJ Cassidy. I have a feeling this shit is going to be good. Real Good.
In addition to their event marketing campaign – they are also going heavy on social media, running Facebook campaigns (Friends of SoBe Lifewater on Facebook will have an opportunity to win invitations to the SoBe Summer Friday events;) as well as launching TweeLife – A trademarked SoBe Twitter aggregator bringing the “best of summer tweets” promoting the hottest summer activities, events and trends to online followers (Expect Free SoBe products at the events.)
Coming from the Event Planning world and the Digital Advertising world – I think SoBe put together a pretty solid campaign. They are hosting hot events, embracing social media platforms, as well as building their own microsite. And everything is FREE!!! People love free shit. Do I think that this campaign will help them regain their market share stolen by Glacéau Vitamin Water – No – I think Vitamin Water pretty much has the “vitamin water” category on lock down. But I do think this will help increase SoBe’s brand visibility and make them seem a little “cooler” amongst their target demographic. This really comes down to a battle of Coca Cola versus Pepsi and I am interested to see what kind of summer campaigns Coke comes out with. Hopefully it will mean more free shit and cool parties…. Or maybe they will bring back “IDYKYDG” – If You Don’t Know You Don’t Go… ha! Remember that?
More free parties beverage companies please….
The Downtown Diaries 