B-to-C Events

The Volvo Ocean Race is all about the speed and spectacle of sailing on the wide-open seas. PUMA, which is sponsoring a yacht called Mar Mostro (it means “monster of the sea” in Italian), brings that excitement on shore with its bright red retail store and roof-top lounge in the race village, a hub of sponsor activities and entertainment that takes place in 10 historic ports along the way.

In this monthly series, EM brings you tips and tricks from pros and experts who’ve been eating social media marketing for breakfast. So eat up, and check us out on Twitter @eventmarketer and Facebook.com/eventmarketer for more.

To celebrate Queen’s Day, a Dutch national holiday, beer brand Grolsch in Miami partnered with local bike group The Miami Bike Scene, the Grand Central Park non-profit organization, and the Dutch Consulate to turn the monthly Miami Critical Mass bike ride into the Go Dutch! bike ride on April 27. The ride wound through the city and ended at Miami’s Grand Central Park with an orange festooned festival to celebrate the beer and the holiday. The brand handed out 800 branded orange shirts to the bikers at the start of the ride to punch up the visual impact of the 2,000-rider event.

The music industry changes rapidly. And in the late 1990s, electronic dance music, or EDM, gave birth to raves and gave djs a chance to get out from behind the scenes and launch their own careers. The EDM movement lost some momentum during the early 2000s, but in the past few years has again been beating the drum of success.

It isn’t often that a b-to-b tour gives rise to one that connects with consumers, too. As a matter of fact, it’s quite unusual, says Julie Garlikov, vp-marketing at Torani, the Italian coffee syrup brand. But that’s exactly what happened last year when Torani took to the road with its bottles, cups and blenders, hitting independent coffee houses along the West Coast that use the syrup in their coffees and a few of the distributors who service the accounts.