Bacardi's Scotch whiskey brand Dewar's White Label and Japanese brewer Sapporo sponsored (CLL) PHN-LCKN '09, an SMS-themed marketing event that took place last week in New York.

Mobile marketing agency 5th Finger and thehappycorp/LVHRD, a marketing agency that fuels interaction between creative professionals through unconventional events and digital media, organized the event that attracted close to 300 people. Yacht, a DFA recording artist from Portland, OR, performed, and Dewar's and Sapporo provided complimentary drinks to keep subjects entertained throughout the marketing experiment.

"We focused specific audience outreach on the advertising community," said Conrad Lisco, mobility planning director for 5th Finger, San Francisco. "We worked with various advertising-related blogs and media outlets to get advertisers and marketers to the LVHRD event.

"This allowed marketers to see, in real time, how our audience, their potential audience, could leverage mobile technology to deliver brand messages while getting a unique user experience," he said.

The event took place at 92Y Tribeca in Manhattan.

Upon arrival, each consumer was given a "protective" white jumpsuit with a four-digit number emblazoned on the front.

Subjects were asked to text in their first name, last initial and a brief bio with their four-digit ID number to a short code.

The bios for each subject were broadcast onto two large screens in the event space, one above the stage and the other next to the bar.

The experiment was to give test subjects access to information about fellow subjects via common mobile phone functionality.

Each subject could text in another subject's four-digit code to the short code to receive a text message with that person's bio.

LVHRD and 5th Finger documented all interactions with the master SMS database to gauge the experiment's success rate.

Stop SMC
The event was promoted in various online and offline channels, including digital banners on LVHRD.com and LVHRD.org, a Facebook group with an event invite set up specifically to promote (CLL) PHN-LCKN and placements in niche, cultural and trend blogs like Paper Magazine.

The event organizers used the Eventbright ticketing and events system.

"All of the above sparked viral pick-up in all sorts of blogs ranging from Thumbjockey.com to Brooklyn Vegan and Cool Hunting," Mr. Lisco said.

The promotional materials for the event were tongue-in-cheek: "In 2006, Dr. Mark Marmalard founded an initiative to spread the word about SMC, StopSMC.org. After being infected by SMC himself, Marmalard passed the torch to Dr. Scott Dirk, who now heads the organization.

"LVHRD has taken on the threat of Severe Micro-Cellulotamination (SMC) a second time at with an experiment that may prevent the spread of SMC. LVHRD exposed the threat of SMC in 2006 at MoMA, where Les Savy Fav frontman smashed art replicas and guests drank away their SMC woes. The experiment failed.

"Fortunately, LVHRD will test a new solution that will hopefully prevent the disease from reaching pandemic levels."

The actual invitation came by way of a text message.

Several hours before the event started, those who registered online received the location via text.

The SMS invite read: "CLL-PHN-LCKN 09 TNGHT 9pm @ 92Y Tribeca. 200 Hudson St btw Debrosses & Vestry - Canal St ACE or 1 train. No dresses or skirts - dress light - you might overheat!"

"LVHRD has good relationships with the blogs that reach their audience," Mr. Lisco said. "They email them information prior to the events and they help disseminate the details about the event to the like-minded audience.

"The marketing community might call them the 'creative class,' but to LVHRD, they are just people that share their interests of who they want to meet," he said.

Various partners
The creative team at thehappycorp/LVHRD developed the idea for the event and its team was responsible for the execution of the experience.

LVHRD is an event series and online publication geared towards 21-35-year-olds who seek creative experiences. It was created by thehappycorp global in 2004 as an experiential lab.

Over the last four years the company has experimented with formats to bring creatively driven people together with the goal of getting individuals from different disciplines to meet and collaborate.

LVHRD's founder, Doug Jaeger, was recently elected president of the Art Directors
Club.

Dewar's and Sapporo are both long-standing partners of thehappycorp/LVHRD.

Dewar's claims to be America's best-selling blended Scotch whiskey. It is the LVHRD annual partner that collaborates on the creative of events and provides logistical and financial support throughout the year.

After discovering an affinity for brown spirits among the audience, the focus of 5th Finger's relationship with Dewar's has been to connect that brand with the creative class and to encourage sampling among that group.

The LVHRD audience is generally composed of seekers and earlier adopters, so by connecting them to a not-so-common spirit, 5th Finger creates the opportunity for positive word-of-mouth marketing.

Sapporo U.S.A. Inc. opened in New York in July 1984. Sapporo claims to have established itself as the most popular Japanese beer imported into the United States.

For (CLL) PHN-LCKN '09, Sapporo provided financial support and product -- free beer.

Sapporo seeks a connection with creative culture, as is obvious from its involvement with this event.

Over the course of the last year, LVHRD has worked to connect Sapporo to some events which focus specifically on the unique sociability and interactivity that occurs within this culture.

LVHRD serves only one brand of beer at these events. This offers the audience an
opportunity to focus exclusively on the taste of Sapporo.

5th Finger helps take brands mobile by designing and implementing mobile interactions for on-the-go consumers. The firm aided in the development of the software that powered the mobile communications platform.

"We worked with their team and platform to deliver the concept in a very short amount of time," Mr. Lisco said.

A downtown off-shoot of the 92nd Street Y, 92Y Tribeca's mission is to bring together and inspire a diverse community of young people from New York City and beyond, including musicians, artists, filmmakers, performers, writers, educators, humorists, directors, speakers and sports enthusiasts.

The 92Y Tribeca has been open for less than a year. So it is still trying to establish its reputation as a premium cultural venue for its audience.

By partnering with LVHRD and helping the event occur, the 92Y brings its target audience to the venue and capitalizes on the publicity in related blogs and photography sites.

"The purpose of our event and its target audience aligned with their goal of reaching the creative and culturally focused 20-30 New Yorker demographic," Mr. Lisco said.

The question on any savvy marketer's mind is: How will the partners use the SMS database that they accumulated at the event?

There isn't a plan to re-market using mobile media -- the plan is to re-market to the attendees via email at low frequency. Like all of LVHRD's new event concepts, this was an experiment. It wanted to measure the frequency of peer-to-peer-driven communication using SMS in an event format.

In addition, the event served to publicize the band Yacht, which is embarking on a U.S. tour. The music group is led by Jona Bechtolt.

DJ Woodman also performed at the event.

The LVHRD initiative is more artist-driven than marketer-driven. The insights and innovations can occasionally be abused by marketers, though.

"In LVHRD's case, they are just trying to understand how technology influences the human spirit while helping to improve simple socialization," Mr. Lisco said.