Dive Brief:
- Corona unveiled a branded island experience promoting its sustainability efforts, according to a news release. The eco-conscious getaway is being developed by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which markets the beer outside of the U.S.
- Located in the Caribbean Sea, Corona Island plans to open in late spring of 2022 and is vying to receive a "Blue Verified" mark from NGO Oceanic Global. The verification tracks factors such as the elimination of single-use plastic and the implementation of responsible waste management infrastructure.
- Corona is strictly limiting attendance and will seek out guests through enter-to-win mechanisms, including miles rewards, tailored to different countries. An auction hosted by CharityBuzz for Giving Tuesday today will award one grand prize winner and nine guests with an all-expenses-paid, week-long private island stay next year. Proceeds from the auction, which runs through Dec. 14 and is open to non-U.S. residents, benefit Oceanic Global.
Dive Insight:
Corona is thinking big as it tries to tie the return of experiential marketing to its longstanding mission around sustainability. The brand signaled that its push to make the location the first fully Blue Verified Island is on track to be realized by next year.
Reflecting Corona's core beverage products, the getaway features constructions made of 100% natural materials, aiming to lessen their environmental impact. The concept also draws on Corona's advertising messages, where rest and relaxation at the beach are a consistent theme.
Looking beyond the green angle, the activation recognizes that consumers have pent-up travel demand, but may remain wary of vacationing with large crowds as the pandemic rages on. The grand prize for the charity auction supporting Oceanic Global will grant the winner and their guests the entire island to themselves for a week, with each visitor receiving a private bungalow. Separate enter-to-win contests are eligible for consumers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and South Africa.
Corona is plotting a number of activities promoting conscious consumption once the island is open to visitors. Those may include workshops around living without plastic and guided meditations set to natural island sounds. Other aspects of the experience like the culinary programming will take inspiration from the remote locale's organic surroundings.
"Corona Island is unlike anything we've ever done before," Felipe Ambra, global vice president for Corona, said in a press statement. "Now more than ever, people have a need to safely reconnect with the outdoors. We're inviting people from around the world to come together and combine education with responsible tourism. Our hope is that when guests return home, they'll have fallen in love with nature again, and will be re-energized to be better global citizens in their communities."
The ambitious experiential play reinforces other sustainability initiatives from Corona. Earlier this year, it claimed to be the first global beverage brand to achieve a net-zero plastic footprint, meaning it recovers more plastic than it releases into the environment. That mission has started to inform the brand's packaging design as well. In Colombia, the label is experimenting with six-packs that use surplus barley straw in lieu of plastic.
Other beer brands have leaned into a consumer desire to get back out into the world safely amid COVID-19. Coors Light last year ran a campaign that provided fans a chance to win a vacation to the travel destinations they’d used as video chat backgrounds on apps like Zoom.
