Mocktail Week

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries (MBLL) is a government organization in Manitoba, Canada, mandated to promote safe and responsible consumption of its products.
In support of MBLL’s mandate we created the Mocktail Week event to promote zero-alcohol drink options and educate the public about Canada’s Low Risk Drinking Guidelines (LRDG), which recommends having a non-alcoholic drink as a safe drinking tip, planning non-drinking days each week, and abstaining from alcohol under some circumstances.
The event was promoted under MBLL’s DrinkSense social responsibility marketing platform that unifies their responsible use campaigns to educate Manitobans to reduce negative drinking behaviours and promote the LRDG. Creative for the event included the DrinkSense.ca or MocktailWeek.ca URLs which provide paths to responsible use education.
Our creative strived for warm, friendly settings punctuated by mocktails presented as delicious, colourful and inviting. We utilized overhead views of the mocktails to show ingredients and make the drinks feel available.
Mocktail Week—the last week of January—was the time when people could vote online for their favourite mocktail. It culminated with a Clash of the Mixers tasting event at a popular indoor market where bartenders from each participating restaurant showed off their skills and poured free samples for people to taste before consumer-chosen winners were announced.
We created and delivered invitation kits for restaurants with a branded cocktail shaker and brochure detailing how to participate. For participating restaurants, we crafted posters and tent cards to promote their mocktail, the website and event. We also produced newspaper ads, mall posters, direct mail cards and grocery store ads to reach audiences at the checkout. A social media campaign promoted the event and highlighted the mocktails and mixologists.
The tasting event included ballots for voting (online or paper ballot) and personalized profiles for the mixologists’ tables. Almost 1,100 mocktails were served at the event and mocktailweek.ca saw 12,000 unique visitors throughout January. After Mocktail Week, 44 per cent of alcohol consumers said they had tried a non-alcoholic cocktail or beer—up from 32 per cent.
We invite you to “meet the mocktails” at mocktailweek.ca and toast to your favourite mocktail!