MillerCoors is centering a new product launch around mobile and social to separate the Miller Fortune brand from typical beers.

One of the ways in which MillerCoors is introducing the new brand to consumers is by partnering with Urban Daddy and taking over its submit button. With the help of DigitasLBi, Miller Fortune will also be promoted across social platforms, leveraging the different behaviors and trends associated with each platform.

?One of the directives we got from MillerCoors was that they didn?t want to launch [Miller Fortune] like a beer,? said William Matznick, senior vice president of creative at DigitasLBi, Chicago. ?The positioning of the new beverage is more of a spirits positioning.

?From our perspective being their digital agency, they really wanted us to lean into mobile and some more interesting ways to find the consumers than the normal launch method,? he said. ?We launched them on Facebook, Twitter and we?re about to launch them on Instagram. They?ll be the first MillerCoors brand on Instagram.

?One of the things we tried to do with our client was not just the typical banners, we want to integrate the product in an interesting way.?

Night on the town
MillerCoors worked with DigitasLBi and MC Media to launch the UrbanDaddy ?Next Move? app takeover. Next Move lets users find somewhere to go based on who they are with, where they are and what they want to do.

The app?s submit button will now be the Miller Fortune spade, guiding users to make their night a ?Fortune night."

?Another part of our positioning of the brand was it was about going all in, not just having a regular night, inspiring consumers to live a more interesting life,? Mr. Matznick said. ?We wanted to inspire our guys to go out and have one of those all out nights.

?With UrbanDaddy being a discovery platform where you punched in the night you want to have, we thought it would be cool to integrate in a way that we intercept a consumer, we replace the typical submit icon with Miller Fortune,? he said. ?Putting the brand in unexpected places that goes beyond typical banner ads and trying to set the brand apart more.?

MillerCoors will also be incorporating data from UrbanDaddy into its own mobile-optimized microsite for Miller Fortune.

UrbanDaddy goes beyond Yelp and puts a different spin on finding bars, restaurants and other locations. Miller Fortune will incorporate UrbanDaddy?s data and categorization into its locator feature so that consumers will be able to get a better feel for what a bar or restaurant is like.

Miller Fortune will even direct consumers to bars that do not yet sell Miller Fortune but give off the feel that the brand is going for.

?We want guys to feel like they?re going to a whiskey bar,? Mr. Matznick said. ?It?s not a crazy gigantic night club. It?s more these intimate places. They want to make it feel less like a beer and more like a spirit.?

Consumers will be able to access the ?Find your fortune? feature to find these nearby venues. The feature is primarily formatted for mobile and lets consumers opt-in to provide their location.

When consumers click on a location, there is also a button that says ?Uber me there now? and directs consumers straight to Uber?s app.

?We went with a mobile-first mindset for this launch,? Mr. Matznick said. ?The people we?re trying to introduce the product to, they?re primarily on mobile.

?Everyone knows our guys live on their phones, it?s how they connect with each other and find out where they?re going, it?s their main entertainment hub,? he said. ?With Fortune it was just more of how do you twist it so it becomes more of a discovery because it is a new product.

?It?s educating them about the product and the lifestyle they?re trying to connect with and the discovery of finding new experiences through bars and content we provide that connects with them in more of a utility and helping have these all-in nights.?

Social presence
DigitasLBi also leveraged social media to debut Miller Fortune. Looking at the typical ways that consumers interact on the different social platforms, DigitasLBi came up with unique strategies for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

With Twitter, Miller Fortune?s target audience tends to only tweet after 7 or 8 p.m. when they are planning their night out. Therefore, Miller Fortune will focus its Twitter energy on late night posts.

On Facebook, however, target consumers tend to check it throughout the day, creating a need for Miller Fortune to have a more constant presence on the platform. The brand plans to post messages on Facebook in the morning to show off all the fun times that happened the night before, inducing FOMO ? or fear of missing out.

?Twitter?s more of this late-night motivator inspiration to get these guys to stay out and have one of these nights,? Mr. Matznick said. ?Conversely, guys are on Facebook all day long. They check it first thing in the morning to see what happened the night before.

?We want to treat Facebook as a FOMO-inducing mechanism of look at what you missed last night,? he said.

Instagram, on the other hand, is an entirely new platform for MillerCoors with Miller Fortune being the first brand to break into it. DigitasLBi plans to treat Instagram like a visual representation of the moment when a consumer decides to have a ?Fortune night.?

Miller Fortune will post real photos of a scene where a consumer may be flipping the top of the beer bottle to decide whether or not he will go out. One side of the top shows a black spade and the other shows a white spade, almost like flipping a coin.

Be it through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or other apps or sites, Miller Fortune understands the importance of reaching consumers via mobile and social to authentically introduce them to the new beer. The strategy takes into account the behavior and tendencies of its target audience to connect with them in a successful way.

?The brand team looked at their investment, they leaned in on mobile a little more heavily because that?s when these guys are making the decisions,? said Andrew Furth, MillerCoors account manager at DigitasLBi. ?A lot of their paid social media is focused on late night. It?s a bet the brand is placing on owning a specific kind of occasion.

?The brand is a lifestyle brand versus a lot of the beer brands that exist that are all about the packaging and beer style,? he said. ?This brand is a fantastic tasting beer but they?re really interested in owning a lifestyle segment and playing that spirits drinking.

?It was a paradigm shift at MillerCoors. If a spirit might do something, we would consider doing it. It inspired the team to behave a little differently and that?s why we placed such heavy bets in mobile.?

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York