[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdnssHlcRk]
This is the Buddy Cup, created by Budweiser Brazil. The cup connects to your Facebook account, and when you clank it against someone else’s Buddy Cup, the two of you become friends on Facebook. So you have the best of both worlds here: the most delicious beer in existence, and the ability to quickly add strangers as Facebook friends. I’m assuming, of course, that you like beer that tastes like warm paint no matter how cold it is, and your definition of “friend” is something along the lines of “person who was in a bar at the same time I was once.”
All surliness aside, this actually looks pretty cool. According to the above video, people attending a Budweiser-sponsored event were able to scan a little chip on the bottom of each cup using their smartphone and then link that cup to their Facebook account. The video continues on to say, “So, they just did the same as always: went out drinking Bud and making friends.” I know that’s how I roll.
I used to frequent a bar in Minneapolis where you could buy your own mug for $20. They’d keep the mug behind the bar for you, and every time you went there, you’d get to drink out of your own mug and each beer would cost less than it’d cost non-regulars. Now THAT’s how you create alcoholism loyalty. There was a lengthy waiting list for a mug, all the regulars knew each other by virtue of the fact we all had mugs, and several of us clanked our mugs together for various reasons. None of us drank Budweiser.
What I’m saying is: instead of rolling this out at one-off Budweiser events, go back in time and do this at the Green Mill on Hennepin Ave. in Uptown when I was still a Mug Club member there. I don’t even think we had Facebook back then, so bonus: We’re all filthy stinkin’ rich now for accidentally creating the world’s most popular social network with all our mug clanking.
Buds ‘Buddy Cup’ Syncs Cheers-ing to Facebook; Not Bang With Friends [HyperVocal via CNET]