Bro's Icing Bro's: Smirnoff Success?

(Picture courtesy of me, icing my best friend, 2010)

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've likely heard of "Bros Icing Bros," which was a huge internet sensation this summer. According to CollegeHumor.com, the rules are simple and as follows:

• Buy Smirnoff Ice, present it to one of your bros in any manner, your bro must instantly get on one knee and chug the Smirnoff Ice on the spot regardless of setting.
• You cannot refuse an ice. If you refuse to drink the ice you are instantly excommunicated and shunned, and thus can never ice another bro or be iced.
• If you are iced by a fellow bro you can ice block. When presented with an ice, you pull out an ice of your own and reverse the ice on your bro. The ultimate ice insult.
  

I was seeing and hearing about this happening everywhere. From college campuses, to the workplace, in grocery stores, at weddings and even on airplanes - icing your friends was "the" Summer 2010 thing to do. Thousands of people across the company were flocking to grocery and liquor stores to buy Smirnoff Ice, of all things.

Being a sucker for good advertising, I couldn't help but wonder if this was all a set-up and if Smirnoff was behind the whole thing. According to The Huffington Post, who quoted AdAge,

"[Smirnoff Ice Parent] Diageo has taken measures to stop this misuse of its Smirnoff Ice brand and marks, and to make it clear that 'icing' does not comply with our marketing code, and was not created or promoted by Diageo, Smirnoff Ice, or anyone associated with Diageo" the company said in a statement (Daly, 2010).

Hmm.

According to a New York Times (NYT) article written by J. Goodman, the game could either be a brilliant marketing strategy or could potentially tarnish the company's name. If the ploy was consumer-generated, this would be known as "brand hijacking" and many large brand names are no stranger to these methods.

No matter how the viral game came to be, a few things are for sure. The NYT reports that "such hijacking of a brand is not uncommon, and in this case, it has produced a short-term benefit for Smirnoff, raising awareness of the brand and extending it to young male consumers who formerly shunned the drink as one aimed at women. Sales of Ice products have taken off in in some southern college towns, including Sewanee, Tenn., and Charleston, S.C., where "icing" took early root" (Goodman, 2010).

An increase in both brand awareness and sales are never bad things - but was the viral effort a bad one for the brand? No matter who created the game, it was a great move for Smirnoff, intentionally or otherwise. I truly believe that the more you can get your consumer to interact with your brand, the better.

As the old saying goes "all press is good press." And for Smirnoff, it was great.

Works Cited:

Goodman, J. (2010, June 8). Popular new drinking game raises question, who's 'icing' whom? The New York Times, p. B3.

Daly, J. (2010, June 9). Bros icing bros: not a Smirnoff campaign, Brosicingbros.com taken down. The Huffington Post.