Our View: An advertiser’s dream campaign

IT WAS amusing to hear that KEO – which is 20 per cent owned by the Church – was contemplating whether to sue an American company after the popular local brew made a special appearance in a porn movie.

In the film, set in a Greek tavern in New York, a woman pours beer from a KEO bottle wedged in her cleavage after having a discussion with a man about the ‘Greek origin’ of the beer, following which, the action moves on to other things.

A KEO representative was quoted by an international news agency as saying:  “We are always searching for ways to promote our products and Cyprus throughout the world, but this is certainly not a path we would have chosen.”

The company yesterday denied this and said it had chosen to ignore the whole issue.  Perhaps it has wisely decided to go with another perspective. What has happened is an advertiser’s dream – massive free publicity. Given that the target market for porn movies is probably much the same as that for beer, KEO may be remembering two marketing axioms; sex sells, and, any publicity is good publicity.

It’s also worth noting that the symbol of Cyprus itself is a naked lady emerging from the waves, sans beer of course.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.