It's nearly October! Time to trade in your pajama bottoms for lederhosen, dust off your stein and set up your webcam for a virtual visit to Bavaria.
With coronavirus forcing the cancellation of in-person Oktoberfests in Munich and around the world for the first time in recent memory, brands have been forced to get creative in bringing the celebration’s core spirit of beer-drinking jubilance into consumers’ homes.
To replicate Oktoberfest remotely with any success, brands must look to the key elements of the event: the food, the beer, the music, and the spirit of the celebration. Beer and pretzels is perhaps the most iconic pairing of the whole event, so it only makes sense that two well-known brands would partner to cash in on this combo.
This year, those brands are pretzel maker Auntie Anne’s and Boston-based brewer Samuel Adams, who are teaming up to offer a limited-edition “Oktoberfest At Home” kit.
For sale online starting today, the $89 party pack includes everything a group would need to enjoy a full-on German celebration in the comfort of a living room: a DIY pretzel-making kit, a six-pack of Sam Adams’ OctoberFest lager, lederhosen, steins, a downloadable “Prost from Home” playlist, and more. The promotion was conceived and executed in-house by the partners.
The Auntie Anne’s-Sam Adams partnership is not a last-minute symptom of a coronavirus marketing scramble. “While the idea of the at-home kit stemmed from the fact many people are staying home and celebrating events virtually or in a social-distanced fashion, we had been planning on partnering with Samuel Adams this year for Oktoberfest,” says Danika Brown, director of growth initiatives for Auntie Anne’s.