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Molson Polar Beach Party
In an effort to distinguish itself from the many other brewers of ice beers, Molson conceived of a promotional event that would break into the male twenty-one to twenty-seven age bracket of the American market (Causey 1996). Preceding the Molson Ice Polar Beach Party in September 1995, Molson USA focused its advertisements on the slogan ‘‘Molson Ice, from the land where ice was born,’’ a clear reference to both the home of the famous brewery and, with reminders of Molson’s status as ‘‘North America’s oldest brewery,’’ to North American colonial history and settler sensibility. As was the case with the Coors Lite advertisement, Molson Ice coupled the actual ‘‘boldness’’ of the taste and excessive alcohol of the product with the cold and physically challenging Canadian landscape.Not unexpectedly, then, Molson’s ‘‘From the land where ice was born’’ print advertisements (Molson Breweries U.S.A. 1995, n.p.) added the following text, under the heading ‘‘Canada to the extreme’’:Each year thousands of thrill seekers assault the rugged mountainsides that fill Canada like ice cubes in a cup. Whether they are heli-skiers, snowborders, ice climbers, or any other form of adrenaline junkie, Canada satisfies their thirst for the extreme.
A relatively new phenomenon in televised sports culture, extreme sports easily cross over from programming on the American cable sports network ESPN to remarkably similar ‘‘music’’ programming such as MTV sports. The first extravaganza of extreme sports, the July 1995 ESPN Extreme Games broadcast, featured such daredevil sports as street luge and sky surfing as well as other relatively mainstream activities such as mountain biking. So successful was the program that, according to Newsweek magazine (1995, 80), ‘‘it sold six ‘gold level’ sponsorships to companies like Nike, Chevrolet, and AT&T.’’ Moreover, ‘‘a winter version may be next.’’ Part of the widespread appeal of such risk-taking, extreme leisure activities seems to be the proximity of death or the unexplained.Apart from extreme games (which were showcased on the Molson Ice Web site), excessive alcohol, extreme cold, and remote space, there remains the rock concert itself. The star of the Molson concert was Courtney Love, singer for the band Hole and widow of the late rock icon Kurt Cobain. Not surprisingly, Love’s persona as an over-the-top excessive performer was a good match for the event’s focus on extremes. The Globe and Mail rightly noted in a preview of the concert (Feschuk 1995a, A1) that ‘‘Nary a month goes by in which [Love] . . . does not find her way into the entertainment pages for passing out, throwing a fit, or trying to knock someone’s block off.’’ As a result, the article proclaimed that Molson’s Polar Beach Party’s ‘‘Contest winners [will have to] brave flurries, vendors, and Courtney Love’s volatility.’’ Love’s arrival in the Arctic hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk was, as a result, overdetermined from the beginning (Feschuk 1995b, C3):
Her face as white as the snow-capped peaks in those Molson Ice commercials, Courtney Love stepped through the doorway of the 737 and wobbled down its steps, seemingly oblivious to the hoots of welcome from 50 or so Inuvialuit kids. Safely reaching the ground despite bets to the contrary from some onlookers, the singer . . . was propped up by a hunky female aide with pink hair, who also lit Love’s cigarette and helped keep the purse from slipping off Love’s arm. . . . A member of Hole’s management later said that Love was ‘‘disoriented.’’
If, as previously noted, the site of the concert differentiated it from the history and conventions of other large concert events, then the actual music and persona of the headline musicians further defined its excessive theme. Moreover, the excessive sound, rhythm, and lifestyle linked the concert event to the social space that was produced by the rugged landscape and various cultural appendages, such as extreme sports. Clearly, a marketing campaign based on ‘‘thrill seeking’’ would not be enhanced by a concert by Roger Whittaker or by a concert performed at Toronto’s Skydome.
