It’s Friday night and the music is loud. Attractive 20-somethings are dancing, laughing and clinking together green bottles of beer. The scene looks like a cliché beer ad. But we’re not in a commercial. Tonight, we are the commercial.

The guests have been lured by the promise of free beer. They receive six-packs upon entry and in exchange, pose for photos that will be posted online. The party is part taste-test, part cool-hunt and 100% marketing ploy.

I was enlisted to host this party in April, after receiving a Facebook message from Toronto-based word-of-mouth marketing agency Matchstick. It was from Danah Abdulla, an influencer-relations coordinator I’d met during LG Fashion Week in March. She’d been reading my blog regularly and wanted me to take part in a social media initiative for a new client, Carlsberg.

The premise was simple: throw a party with free beer, then blog about it. The brand wanted young male bloggers, who write lifestyle and party blogs, update regularly, and have an average of 400 weekly readers. I fit the bill. I filled out a short survey about my blog, beer preferences and social life. A few days later I got word I made the cut, and became a brand-blogger.

The party-blog initiative was created to help Carlsberg change its image. The beer is known for its ties to soccer in the U.K. and its sponsorship of Toronto FC. But Carlsberg doesn’t want to be perceived as another middle-class sporting brew.

Last May, the label switched from domestic to import in Canada. It upped the price of a case of 24 from $35.95 to $44.95, began importing from the Carlsberg group in Denmark, and starting bottling its brew in a green bottle instead of the standard domestic brown. The label now wants consumers to group it with competitors like Heineken and Stella Artois. This means attracting a new demographic: young, single males who frequent trendy restaurants and bars with their circle of equally hip friends.

“We spent a lot of money, time and focus on soccer last year,” explains Becky Kwiatkowski, marketing manager for Carlsberg Canada. “We knew we were hitting the same people over the head.”

The company hired Matchstick in February, and the agency created a program to first get Carlsberg into the hands of its new target customers, then get those people to help create buzz. They sifted through Blogspot, Wordpress, and a slew of e-zines to find the ideal set of able-blogging young men. Forty were selected in total: 25 from Toronto and 15 from Montreal.

From these 40, Matchstick and the beer’s creative agency GJP estimate they will create 51,000 impressions. Because each blogger has 400 weekly readers, the 40 bloggers create 16,000 online impressions. Each host is expected to invite 20 to 40 guests and Matchstick expects each blogger will have an average of 50 offline conversations about the brand while they are preparing for the parties. That’s 2,000 more impressions. After the party, Matchstick sends freebies to 500 of the blogger’s readers, who are expected to expose the brand to another 10 friends each. That’s another 5,000 impressions to a total of 7,000 offline. Matchstick expects those 7,000 to talk to another four people each, creating a total of 35,000 offline impressions. The 16,000 online impressions brings the total to 51,000.

My party—the third one to be hosted—is May 1. The delivery arrives at 10:30 p.m. A Carlsberg rep hands out 12 six-packs, the maximum allowed, and drops off a Carlsberg promo kit filled with four branded-green ice buckets, a poker set, several bottle openers, and some CDs.

My friends happily guzzle the free brew, but a few doubt a free sixer will change their buying habits. I’m leery too, until a few weeks later, when I get a phone call from one of the skeptics, Jamie. She’d already bought some Carlsberg. Jamie had wanted bottles in a case she could carry while riding her longboard, and many of the six-packs at the LCBO were cans. Others were boxes with handles, but not brands she’d tasted. She spotted a Carlsberg case with a handle, and knowing she liked it, picked up a case.

Anecdotes like this are exactly how Matchstick measures its success. The week after my party I tell program director Cameron Steed what my friends thought of the beer, and the program. Steed will do this with each of the bloggers, asking about recent conversations and any change in personal buying habits. Later, he will ask me to post a link to a survey on my blog to gain feedback from my friends. Matchstick will offer poker sets to anyone who responds and make a charitable donation each time a reader takes the survey.

If it can get readers to take that survey, Matchstick will know if participants had tried Carlsberg prior to the party, if they have purchased it since and if they have spoken to friends or family about the brand. It will find out about their favourite bars, restaurants, magazines, and websites, and perhaps most importantly, Matchstick will ask participants about their beer purchasing habits.

All of this data will be compiled into a final report and delivered to Carlsberg. It will receive profiles of the bloggers, including their picture, age, and what they’ve said about the brand. Matchstick will also enlist Sysomos, a company that provides social media analytics, to evaluate the online dialogue about the brand, which is included in the report.

Initially, social media was a daunting medium that seemed to lack this type of measurement. But advocates like CP24 web specialist Amber MacArthur say the metrics have been proven. MacArthur, who acts as a social media consultant for major advertisers, says social media initiatives can now produce much more, and more specific, information than traditional channels like TV. Targeting is much easier too, she says. “You can hone in on a specific demographic and really connect with them.”

One week after my party, I post my blog. It’s an account of the evening, including photos. I also post a set on Flickr, and see shots from the evening popping up on Facebook. At the beginning of my blog I link to Carlsberg.ca, but I also make it clear to my readers Carlsberg provided free beer, and that’s why I’m writing about it. All the bloggers will make similar statements.

According to Matchstick, transparency is key, as it allows the blogger to maintain the connection with their readership that attracted Carlsberg to them. “It’s not necessarily an option for the client. We insist on transparency,” says Matthew Stradiotto, co-founder of Matchstick. “We never want to be in the business of tricking consumers.”

Instead, it’s about the blogger doing what they want with the brand. “We are running a marketing program in your living room,” he says. “It can’t feel like a marketing program, it can’t look like a marketing program, and it doesn’t. It’s not about a bunch of Carlsberg cheerleaders bursting through the front door.”

The bloggers are all allowed to write anything they like, but don’t expect many bad reviews. Bloggers may be the type who will complain about anything, but Carlsberg knows few 20-something males hate free beer.

“Carlsberg knows there may be some negativity, and they’re open to that,” Stradiotto says. “If somebody doesn’t like the beer, they’re allowed to say so.”