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Amstel Hops Onto The Digital Detox Train

Several marketing campaigns launched over the last few months are designed to help young working men unplug, ideally with a beer. One of them is an app that offers a reward for leaving their phones alone.
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What’s the Latest Development?


In a world where increasing numbers of people are literally attached to their smartphones, Sofia-based Next Digital Creative Agency (Next-DC) has come up with a number of marketing campaigns for their client, beer manufacturer Amstel. The most recent one, launched last month, is an app that challenges users to put down their smartphones and not touch them for 30 minutes at a time. If they manage to accumulate eight hours’ worth of smartphone rest, they are rewarded with a free beer. The app follows a summer promotion in several Bulgarian cities in which a vending machine dispensed a free beer to anyone who was able to stand completely still for three minutes.

What’s the Big Idea?

While there are few marketing promotional phrases more attractive or effective than “Free Beer,” Next-DC  co-founder Maria Todorova says their campaigns have higher intentions. “Anxiety and stress were some of the problems we tried to solve. Our lives have become so dynamic that we rarely stop to reconsider how important [a] break is.” Deputy creative director Momchil Zakhariev says the goal is to reach Amstel’s target audience, “young men who work in international companies, are well paid, and spend most of their time in the office.”

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Read it at FastCompany

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