Sunday, September 23, 2007

9-23-07: Beer Advertising

If you've ever seen a Coors Light or a Miller Lite commercial, you've been a witness for what is nothing short of bad beer advertising. To be fair, the ads themselves are well-made and visually appealing. But, the message is just bad.

Coors Light is big into "cold taste," and their advertising campaigns usually consist of a train that brings cold refreshment to hot situations. But, wouldn't you want something a little different than beer in those situations? Let's put it this way: if you were in the desert, dehydrated beyond belief, suffering from heat exhaustion, would you look to the heavens and beg for... Coors Light? Of course not. Any beer can be cold if you put it into the fridge long enough. That's easy. Making a beer that tastes good is much more difficult, so Coors Light is just trying to hide behind something. That something is the huge fucking train in their commercials. I like to call it the Bullshit Express.

Miller Lite commercials fall into a different category that's a little more clever. They're usually gloating about how their beer won some award, but I guarantee that their award-winning beer is FAR different than the average bottle you buy at the package store. They probably made some deluxe beer that costs the same as a 24-pack of their normal beer, and that beer only managed to win some niche award at the "World Beer Cup." Wow. I'm really impressed. But that's another issue. The main thing they try to sell is "more taste." This is clever, so I give them some credit. More taste seems like a good thing, but look at it this way: piss has more taste than water, but no one sells bottled piss and makes a profit. If Miller Lite tastes better than other beers in its category, that's a different story. That's a bit more credible. But, at least it's an attempt at making taste a priority. It's still bad beer, so who really cares. I just find the commercials a bit misleading, but their audience doesn't care, so have at it.

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