Sourz, the zingy liquor brand known for its playful personality and versatility, recently named the winners of its first-ever Sourz Design School Challenge, a creative ideas competition that saw the brand partner with students in the fashion, advertising and design programs at George Brown and Humber Colleges in Toronto.

Picked from a shortlist of eight finalist teams, the top three were awarded with cash prizes at an awards ceremony. Participants in the competition made presentations to a judging panel comprised of media and marketing executives from the brand’s distributor, Maxxium Canada; its parent company, Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc.; and its advertising agency, Publicis Canada.

In Jan./08, legal drinking aged teams at each school were tasked to create all-new brand platforms for Sourz that included everything from point-of-sale and collateral material to marketing strategies and ideas - as well as new drink recipes and designs for branded bar-staff clothing.

“The Sourz Design School Challenge was a way for us to reach out to an extremely creative group of people,” says Franco Timpano, brand manager, Maxxium Canada, marketer and distributor of Sourz. “And they did not disappoint. We were blown away by the sheer creativity and thoughtfulness we saw in the final presentations.”

First place award went to Don Connell and Naeem Walji from Humber College, who impressed the judges with their own-able brand concept, themed 'So Urz'. Second place award went to Karina Kornacka, Paul De La Merced and Neil Domingues and their concept, 'Pucker Up'. Third Place award went to the team of Joel Buckborough, Braden Laverty and Adam Strickland for their 'Sweet & Sour Come Together' concept. Kornacka, De La Merced and Domingues also took home the Sourz People’s Choice Award, after an online poll of the public for their favourite.

“We believe co-creativity with our consumers in the design and fashion industry is strongly linked to our brand,” says Dorene Wharton, marketing director at Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., which owns the Sourz brand. “We are so impressed with the results that we want to roll this out nationally next year.”

The winning promotional, marketing and design ideas will be incorporated into the new Sourz brand platform, which will roll out over the course of 2008 and beyond.

The zingy liquor brand is available in its popular Sourz Apple variety in three Canadian markets: Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. In Alberta and BC, Sourz Raspberry flavour is also available. The Canadian market will also be the first in the world to have an all-new Sourz flavour, Berry Fusion, later this year.