From roping two Gardaí into a Skype chat, to being handcuffed to a big hairy Polish man for five days on a deserted island, Murray Aston’s Heineken Dropped experience was certainly one to remember…
Being dropped in an unfamiliar place with little to no instructions for getting home wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but for Murray Aston it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
The Dubliner was recently ‘Dropped’ by Heineken in the Philippines, but unlike the previous Heineken Dropped experiences (see here), Murray had a fellow Dropped winner handcuffed to him for the entire trip.
His stranded companion for the week would be the Dropped winner Jacob, from Warsaw, and while neither of the men knew each other at the start, they would finish the trip off as good friends with one incredible shared experience to tell their mates.
Before we got talking about the trip itself, we had to ask Murray how he found out about Heineken Dropped in the first place.
“Well, I was walking down the street and someone from Heineken approached me and said would you like to be Dropped? At that time I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I thought ‘Hey, why not. I’ll see what comes of it’.
“So, then she says, ‘Are you guys explorers?’ Having lived in various countries around the world over the years including Mexico and Argentina I thought yeah, definitely! So she said ‘come with me’ and low and behold here I am.”
Before Murray set off on his trip of a lifetime he had to first complete a series of challenges in the Heineken Dropped embassy, as well as a little navigation challenge with the other Dropped Ireland finalist. You can check that out in the video below…
We asked Murray how he felt when he first saw the white smoke and knew he was heading off on the trip of a lifetime: “I just thought, WOW. It felt surreal… but it felt incredibly sore. Why? Because when I pulled on the flare it didn’t go off properly and got stuck, so the hot flare started dripping plastic down over my hand.”
Thankfully, Murray wasn’t hurt by the hot flare and after a few health and safety precautions, mainly tropical injections, he was able to head off to the Philippines. However, before he could jet off to paradise, Murray had to one final challenge to complete.
One of the final interview stages in the Dropped campaign required Murray to have a pretty interesting Skype chat with the director of the Dropped series called Lenard. However, this wasn’t your average Skype call as Lenard told Murray he would have to introduce him to a complete stranger from the street and insisted that they had to be someone that Murray didn’t know.
Now, you’re probably wondering, “How do you hold a Skype call outside without an internet connection?” That’s exactly what Murray thought, so Lenard told him to “bring them into your house, I don’t mind waiting”. After trying and failing to convince random people on the street to go into his house – it’s harder than you’d expect, apparently – Murray came across what would be his Holy Grail in the form of two members of An Garda Síochána.
After some convincing the two Gardaí agreed to the little meet and greet with Lenard, so Murray marched them back to his house and told Lenard, “I didn’t get one person, I got TWO! I’d like to introduce you to two members of An Garda Síochána.”
According to Murray, Lenard just lost it. Apparently, Lenard had to stop himself from crying as he was laughing at the fact Murray managed to convince two Guards to come back to his gaff for a Skype chat. Fair play to the two Gardaí in question, whoever they are.
The rest, as they say, is history. According to Murray the trip was absolutely amazing and he got on really well with his fellow Dropped winner Jacob, considering they were locked to each other for the entire trip. Check it out in the videos below.
One of the things we had to ask Murray was how did he manage to get time off from his day job to head out on such an adventure. Murray was actually fairly lucky as he’s a contemporary artist and he found some time to spare for trip in between work. You can check out his work over on Celteca.ie. We’re sure his Dropped experience will give him some inspiration for his latest work…
So there you have it. Make sure to relive Murray and Jacob’s Heineken Dropped experience by watching the videos embedded in the piece and check out the Heineken Facebook page for more info.
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