Music to their Beers

"I've got two words for you," exclaims the burly Scottish roadie type who has just burst through the big wooden double doors into the dimly lit stone crypt which is to be our venue for this evening. "Rabbit. Warren."

We can't help but agree with him. We have run the gauntlet in a proper Edinburgh downpour to reach a non-descript stone doorway. Inside, we've been led down a series of stone passageways into the almost spooky underground cavern in which the Miller Brands music concept 'The Mill' will tonight celebrate its first birthday.

Beer and music have always had something of a symbiotic relationship. You rarely have large amounts of one without the other. Be it a music festival, a music venue or simply a music tour, rarely does a major music event take place without a big beer brand being involved.

So it is no surprise then, that when the Miller Brands team were looking for a new and innovative direction for its Miller Genuine Draft (MGD) brand in Scotland, music was the last thing on their minds.

"We said to the agency please, please, don't come back with music," says Miller Brands marketing director Tessa Pintusewitz. "Because everyone does music!" But after talking to MGD's loyal drinkers - both male and female 18 to 34-year-olds, many achingly cool and unlikely to be taken in by the usual brand marketing bull***t (no offence Tessa!) - music hit all the right buttons. "They came back to us and said, you can't not do it," says Pintusewitz.

But what they also said was that the usual sponsorship deal or bandwagoning on the back of an existing event was simply not going to cut it with the in-crowd.

They wanted something new, something fresh, something that didn't look like a cynical marketing ploy - something that was 'real'. And so, just over a year ago, The Mill was born.

The Mill is built around a series of free live music events, put on in unusual and striking venues in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and featuring up-and-coming Scottish bands from the underground music scene.

All very well, you might say, but how is this helping pubs?

Selected MGD stockists are able to offer their customers exclusive free gig tickets and downloads and build business on traditionally quiet nights of the week (see box). In addition, the bands featured at the gigs have the rights to the recorded material and professional photographs from the night, and are able to keep and and use them to further their careers. Some have already been signed on the back of it!

So in theory everyone wins - it's not easy trying to be 'down with the kids', but could it be that MGD has managed it?

"Too many brands assume people care and want to listen to them without actually establishing a dialogue," says Pintusewitz. "Consumers aren't stupid. They need to feel they are getting something real in return."

And you can't get much more real than this particular Thursday night in rainy Scotland where the kids strut their stuff to four of the best live acts I, for one, have seen in a good long while.