Harbin Beer surprises Chinese teen on her 18th birthday with personal beer tap

SHANGHAI –  While the rest of the world counted down to welcome 2019, Harbin Beer took a more personal approach and counted down to young Tian Jimo’s exact time of birth to welcome this young lady into adulthood.

Tian Jimo and Tian Jichu are none other than a pair of twins who made news as babies born across two millennia with the former entering the world at 23:59 hours on 31st December, 2000 and her twin sister born two minutes later on 1 Jan 2001, 00:01 hours.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) owned beer brand Harbin Beer, in collaboration with BBH China decided to search for Tian Jimo, the last person to turn 18 in the country in 2018 and celebrate her coming of drinking-age with a surprise party and an unforgettable gift– her own personal Harbin Beer tap and a lifetime supply of Harbin Beer.

The beer brand took it further by building a facial recognition feature into the tap that identifies Tian Jimo so that it can only be activated by her. The agency used photos supplied by Tian Jimo’s family and applied an IoT valve lock with AI Machine Learning to develop a beer valve that unlocks on face recognition. Now Tian Jimo’s face is the key to her very own beer tap.

Commenting on the activation, Vicky Ma, Marketing Director, Harbin Beer: “From today, everyone born in the 20th century will be considered adults. Reaching the legal drinking age is considered a rite of passage for young people. We put ourselves in the shoes of those born at the end of the year and imagined how miserable it would be to watch most of your peers enjoy the official status of being legally allowed to drink. So we thought we’d make it up to the last person to turn 18 and give her a very special birthday gift.”