I noticed that Martini have chosen to continue their quest to engage their consumer-base by repeating their competition to find the face of the brand with a public casting.
Last year it was the Martini “Kisser” casting, where a young man was chosen to represent the beverage after a competition to find the most kissable man.
This year it is the women’s turn with the Martini Royale casting – the prize €150,000 and 12 pairs of Louboutin shoes. The company have a Facebook page where you can nominate yourself – I’m not sure whether you have to be kissable for this casting, maybe just conventionally attractive.
Working in the talent business as I do, I’d be wanting to know what I would have to do for those €150,000 and shoes (why the shoes??). 
There is no indication on the Facebook page which I think is rather misleading. But then I’m not the target audience as I think I’d be worried about leaving the house in a pair of Louboutin’s shoes at over £600 a pop.
But I like the fact that Martini are being creative in their approach, trying to get to their fanbase with something more interesting than a traditional commercial, attempting to generate a sense of engagement and ownership around the brand.
I am however a little disappointed that they have not been brave enough to treat the women who will drink Martini Royale as real people, rather than creatures for whom the possession of 12 pairs of shoes is as important as €150,000. That just smacks of the stereotyping we expect from the traditional world of advertising and I consider it lazy.
However, they do have 1200 entries from around the world on their Facebook page (sadly I couldn’t save the picture of Zane from Riga standing scantily clad in front of a large motorbike), so Christian Louboutin is obviously hot to trot when it comes to twenty-something women. There’s also a lot of Twitter activity and various swanky events going on to drive people to the page.
We have five more days to enter the competition – tell me if you notice a lot of publicity surrounding the winner – then we will know whether Martini have discovered a successful way to approach their consumers.
