Inside a giant gin and tonic

Through a fog of gin and tonic, I can make out a giant straw, a giant wedge of lime, the faces of a few strangers and the faint strains of Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round'.

I'd like to point out it's 7pm, and although that description could apply to any number of sticky-floored West End nightclubs when the drink is flowing and the beer goggles are on, I've not yet drunk a drop.

This is no alcohol-induced hallucination, but gin brand Hendrick's latest foray into unusual ways of marketing what they are keen to stress is a most unusual brand. The fog is real, as are the giant straws and limes.

Sadly, so too is the white-paper boiler suit I'm required to wear, complete with hood and a crotch so low that I feel like I have started to morph into MC Hammer.

Walk-in cocktail​

I'm at what has been described as the first ever walk-in cocktail - a gin and tonic. A shop unit and basement, near Carnaby Street in Soho, London, has been turned into a temporary bar for just six nights in late April by food experimentalists Sam Bompas and Harry Parr.

The duo are better known for their work with jelly. Creations have included jellies that glow in the dark and jelly models of various buildings, including St Paul's Cathedral, for the London Festival of Architecture.

The idea of this project, named Alcoholic Architecture, is that the gin mist and a soundtrack by sound artist Douglas Murphy of splashes, slurps, bangs and muffled music, will give visitors the experience of being inside the drink.

Hendrick's has backed the event as a sponsor. A fun project it may be, but it has generated a serious amount of global press coverage for the brand. Since opening, there have been articles published as far afield as Italy, Denmark, Canada and the US.

Guerilla tactics​

Experiential or guerilla marketing, whereby consumers experience the brand through some form of event, seems to be gaining favour among drinks companies, with a number of campaigns in recent months.

The theory is that if someone experiences your brand through an event of some kind, people will remember it and understand your product better. Think T-Mobile's highly successful train station dancers advert.

The Hendrick's experience so far is very hot and sticky. The floor is wet so my shoes are soggy, and with just a single green light bulb in the middle of the room, it's very hard to see anything.

Having its name attached to something so unusual has helped to get its quirky off-beat brand message across and its name on the lips of countless new consumers, says Riana Gallagher, brand manager for Hendrick's. The Scottish distilled gin was launched in the UK in 2003, and unlike other gins is infused with cucumbers from Holland and Bulgarian Rosa Damascena rose petals.

Getting people to experience the brand in unusual ways is a key marketing tool.

"Right now, experiential accounts for just over a third of the marketing budget," says Gallagher. "These events are the best way to get people trying our most unusual gin. Our objective for this year is therefore to focus on enabling consumers to trial Hendrick's Gin in an environment that reflects the brand's delightfully peculiar and unusual positioning.

"Awareness is growing and we know from previous experiential activity that our conversion from trial to purchase is good."

Another drinks brand using experiential marketing is Pernod Ricard's vodka Absolut. The Absolut Kindness campaign ran for a week in April in areas of London. Mark Hamilton, head of marketing for vodkas at Pernod Ricard, says it aimed to create a mini-movement where people were rewarded for kindness.

"Our intention was to bring Absolut closer to our consumers, by bringing our advertising to life for people. We wanted them to not only understand our message, but participate themselves, in a brighter, happier and more optimistic world - and for a moment, forget about the doom and gloom of the recession," he says.

Cinema-goers were able to exchange kindness for free snacks and Absolut drinks; rail commuters who wished each other good morning were given a free day's travel; buskers played for kindness not money; coffee shops gave away drinks in return for compliments and bars gave Absolut mixed drinks away in exchange for high-fives. The final day saw traders at Berwick Street Market sell their wares for hugs, kisses and jokes.

The project again generated headlines for the brand as well as reaching those consumers on the ground.

Generating a buzz​

For Hendrick's, this reach has been global. But it is the word-of-mouth that events generate that Gallagher says is "all important" in generating sales. Over the last few years, it has held a number of events from kissing booths to a No Rush Hour Society that invited commuters to sip gin in a temporary bar.

Gallagher is the first to admit that the small-batch produced gin has a small following at the moment but, according to Nielsen, Hendrick's grew in volume by 41.8 per cent in the on-trade for the period from January 2008 to 2009.

"Experiential plays a large role because the brand is still relatively young. There are many people yet to sample it," she says. "So we felt this project was a natural thing to do.

"We embrace everything that is odd, innovative, unconventional and doing something like this has all of those aspects and will communicate that out for Hendrick's. There is certainly a wider reach as a result of this kind of activity. It gets people talking and generates that all-important word of mouth recommendation. There's been such a buzz about it."

Indeed, this buzz is palpable both in the queue outside and in the hot and sticky gin and tonic bar. All of the 40-minute sessions that ran over the six nights the bar was open sold out. Guests paid £5 for a ticket for a 40 minute session.

Andrea, 29, has come with three friends because someone she works with told her about it. "It's a really strange experience and that's why we wanted to come," she says. "Our friends are jealous. It's something that's fun to say that you've done, but once is enough."

I agree. The sticky, sweet vapour hits the back of your throat before too long, making taking deep breaths without coughing almost impossible, so it's time to get out into the fresh air.

However, the new-found creative partnership between Bompas, Parr and Hendrick's looks to have greater longevity.

Launching in Edinburgh in June is their next experiential project, the Hendrick's Horseless Carriage of Curiosities. A restored 1890 rail carriage containing a mad scientist's laboratory and an eccentric dining room, will tour the country, allowing people to sample the gin. Not bonkers enough for you? Don't speak too soon. Bompas and Parr are set to do the catering.