Coming soon to a theatre near you: Kokanee’s first feature-length motion picture titled The Movie Out Here, starring the brand’s colourful cast of spokescharacters – Glacier and Fresh, the Glacier Girls and Sasquatch.
The Labatt beer brand and its long-time creative agency Grip Ltd. have partnered with Alliance Films to produce a 90-minute comedy that takes place in Western Canada.
The movie will follow a group of friends as they reunite in a ski town before the plot turns “into an adventure of mountainous proportions.”
Though Grip is overseeing the entire creative process, it is enlisting help from pros and amateurs alike, from professional screenwriters to the beer’s Canadian fans.
On Monday, the agency launched TheMovieOutHere.ca, which will serve as a hub for the project where consumers can view a trailer and submit their ideas for props and bar locations to appear in the movie.
The agency and its partners will also host casting events and soundtrack auditions for bands online and in major markets across Western Canada.
Randy Stein, creative partner at Grip told Marketing that Kokanee is a brand that consumers have really engaged with over the years thanks to its online Ranger and Sasquatch initiatives.
The idea behind the movie is to take this engagement to the next level and make it more than just a 90-second commercial, he said.
“What we want is to create is a movie,” he said. “The world where it is now, people are more than willing to watch branded entertainment as long as it entertains them.”
Amy Rawlinson, marketing manager at Labatt’s Columbia Brewery described the Kokanee film as “Hot Tub Time Machine meets Old School” and borrows some of the brand equity that fans love, such as the crazy cast of characters. “The fans have a history of getting involved [with the brand] and it just felt like the right time for a big idea like this.”
Kokanee is driving consumers to the microsite with a 30-second television commercial, in-theatre advertising, posters and a special in-case t-shirt.
The movie is slated for release in Western Canada early next year. A nationwide release is “still to be determined,” said Stein.
