The new Facebook shop heralds a new era for ‘F-Commerce’ as marketers struggle to find ways to convert likes into sales.
A specially designed, three-tier security system is in place to ensure that no alcohol is sold to underage consumers.
There is a Facebook controlled age gate on the Magners Cider page, meaning that no alcohol brand Facebook pages can be viewed by users with profiles under 18.
There is an additional age gate page on the Magners Specials F-Commerce APP where consumers must confirm their date of birth before access is granted. Finally only payment with credit card is accepted, meaning access to product to under 18’s is restricted.
An on-line display advertising campaign will enable consumers to a click through the Magners F-commerce site.
Simultaneously, Magners will also be launching a new print campaign which will be one of the first to use new Augmented Reality mobile technology from Aurasma.
Smartphone users who have downloaded the Aurasma Lite App will be able to interact with exclusive content directly from the print advertising.
When users place their Smartphone over the creative, it will launch the interactive content which gives them access to tasting notes for each of the Magners Specials flavours as well as the opportunity to claim a free Magners Specials branded glass.
The campaign will appear in national press and food magazines with the three executions on consecutive pages, the print campaign will feature an Aurasma ‘A’ logo in the corner to indicate that digital content is available.
“Being able to purchase these products via Facebook and integrating Aurasma into our creatives is exciting and bold and underlines the growing role that digital and social media has on the lives of our consumers,” said Magners Head of Marketing, Kirsty Hunter.
The United Kingdom has the highest per capita consumption of cider, as well as the largest cider-producing companies in the world. As of 2006, the UK produces 600 million litres of cider each year (130 million imperial gallons).
Cider accounts for just 7.9% of UK Servings but wine’s share is three times that (25.5%), claim HRMC figures.
There has been massive growth in the number of wine drinkers over the past 25 years, although research shows this growth has now stabilised.
A recent report from the Mail Media Centre, looks at the demographics of wine drinkers, how wine sellers are currently marketing their products and how wine drinkers respond to direct mail.
Key insights include that wine sellers favour press, TV and direct mail. Direct mail volumes grew by 4.4% in 2010, compared to 2009.
September was by far the busiest month for sending direct mail promoting wine in 2010. Wine sellers posted more than 800,000 items that month. The next busiest months - with around half a million items sent - were February, July, October and November.
Read more on: Direct mail and the wine sector