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You may have read "Keeping It Interesting," a Best in Class feature on the Mexican beer brand's experiential marketing effort, in the October 30th issue of Marketing News. If not, have a look here.

Heineken USA Inc. and partner agency Euro RSCG Magnet have an advertising hit with their Most Interesting Man Dos Equis TV spots. The Most Interesting Man, a mysterious, classy, silver-bearded gentleman of grandeur, oozes charisma and cool - women want him, men want to be him - and of course his beer of choice is Dos Equis. Introduce yourself by checking out a sample spot here.

In 2008 Heineken and experiential partner agency Mirrorball added fuel to the fire with The Most Interesting Show in the World, a variety show of bizarre and dazzling entertainers whom the Most Interesting Man has "met" during his exotic travels. Any show where a contortionist fires a bow and arrow with her foot, among other performers' phenomenal feats, is bound to get notice. Make it free and give out bottles of Dos Equis (40,000 in total during a 14-city tour), and you've got a hot marketing ticket, and grand opportunities to inspire ravenous word of mouth and recruit devout brand devotees.

Following the success of the '08 tour - 99 million media impressions, contribution to a 22% increase in year-over-year sales - Dos Equis is doing it again this fall. On behalf of Marketing News , I was on hand for the Chicago stop of the tour last Friday.

It was an interesting night, to put it mildly. Among the memorable moments, stunt performer Mark Faje sliced newspaper into pieces with a bullwhip and balanced a bowling ball on his head with a live scorpion in his pants. Then there was his lawnmower act, where Faje balanced a running lawnmower upside down on his chin as crewmen tossed heads of lettuce into the blades that were sliced and diced and flung into the crowd. (This made up for Faje's fumbled juggling tricks).

Host Angelo Moore, frontman of funk outfit Fishbone, sang and played sax and danced so hard he was literally dripping sweat. Barely able to contain himself, he literally leaped into the crowd during the finale, grabbing my wife and myself by the wrists, yanking us to join the crowd onstage and dance along to the Madness ditty "Our House." Out of journalistic integrity, and embarrassment, we bolted for the exits, but watching the action from afar, it was obvious the crowd was going crazy. One apparently intoxicated guy slipped on stage, crashed onto the floor, got back up and kept dancing. No doubt, the Most Interesting Man would approve.

There was the wicked beatboxing of Butterscotch (her stage name for Most Interesting Show was "Phatima, Empress of Egypt"), and an eye-popping feat of endurance courtesy of hand balancer Mei Ling. Then there was my personal fave, The Human Slinky, a spellbinding dance routine orchestrated by a contortionist inside a four-armed, rainbow-colored slinky costume.

The chorus of dancing ladies in skimpy outfits was too crass and sexual, and too easy, to fit here - what makes the Most Interesting Man spots winning is that they avoid the easy "sex sells" trap played heavily by male-targeted brands. But that aspect aside, the other performers expanded on the exoticism and mystique that define the Most Interesting Man ads and the Dos Equis brand itself.

What I found most interesting of all Friday weren't the performances but the ways Dos Equis' brand and its Most Interesting Man campaign were incorporated into the evening. The logo was all over the stage, on the venue walls, on waitstaff clothing and 16 LCD screens. The beer of course was flowing. And the brand and elements from Most Interesting Man made their way into the show itself. Faje incorporated a Dos Equis bottle into an act, and when he took out that scorpion, he made sure to flash the Dos Equis-emblazoned napkin it was using for a "blanket." Moore repeatedly told the crowd to "Stay Thirsty, My Friends" (the Dos Equis tag line), and reminisced about the time he and the Most Interesting Man were "jet skiing off the backs of dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea." But the brand's crowning moment came near the end, when Moore encouraged the crowd to hoist their Dos Equis and toast the Most Interesting Man, whose portrait hung on the back wall of the venue. By large numbers, the crowd obliged.

The tour continues through Nov. 19 with stops in Atlanta (Nov. 10), Charlotte, N.C. (Nov. 11), Towson, Md. (Nov. 12), New York (Nov. 13), Tampa, Fla. (Nov. 18) and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (Nov. 19). Shows are free and invite only - your best chance for securing a spot is to become a fan of Dos Equis on Facebook.

Pics from the Chicago show are below, courtesy of Heineken USA and taken by photographer Aynsley Floyd.