So in the past few weeks apparently a wide spread, seemingly (but also much disputed) consumer-generated drinking game popped up and started gaining lots of viral traction online. The interesting thing about it though is not so much the game itself, but more the many questions that surrounded it.
Known only as Bros Icing Bros (which lived online at this website before being shut down this week), the core focus of the game was the sweet malt beverage, Smirnoff Ice.
The game was quite simple as the entire premise was that if someone approached you with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice and you didn’t have one of your own to fend off the attack, you’d be ‘Iced’ and have to get down on one knee and consume the bottle of Smirnoff that your attacker approached you with. Given the need to have your own ammo to arm yourself against these sniper like attacks and the apparent desire by many college students to ‘Ice’ their friends, cases of Smirnoff began moving fast from the shelves, leading some to believe that it was merely a viral marketing ploy by Smirnoff’s parent company Diageo, known for successful viral marketing campaigns, to move products.
Move products it apparently did, but many people, myself included, doubted that it was a viral marketing ploy by the company because it was essentially one huge binge drinking game. It was very hard to understand why the company, viral marketing campaign or not, would want to be associated with a.) binge drinking and b.) people essentially using the product to make fun of the product. Individuals interviewed in some articles made this clear when they would indicated one wouldn’t want be iced because Smirnoff Ice is a “pretty terrible” drink.
Well, answers came yesterday as Diageo apparently confirmed that the past few weeks of games and the online site www.BrosIcingBros.com were not part of a marketing campaign. The site is down, saying only “We had a good run Bros…”
Right now, the Bro the started the whole thing, apparently only known as ‘Joe’, may or may not be in hot water for copyright/trademark issues stemming from the game and the site.
Should be interesting to see how it all plays out.
