I wanted to write these ads up months ago, but initially had a hard time finding them on YouTube. Fortunately, it's never too late to deal with something this shitty.
We all know beer ads - especially light beer ads - are typically awful. That's what happens. But I've found this ad particularly inexplicable from the beginning. Why?
So the plot of the ad is, this guy is going to his softball game and thinks his girlfriend's book club is lame and boring. Then he realizes they have Bud Light and decides he'd rather just hang out there, drink beer, hit on his girlfriend's friends, and invite over all his buddies to party as well.
As far as I can see, there are two options. Either Bud Light condones this asshole's behavior:
"It's a party whenever Bud Light's around! Drop what you were doing, ignore all rules of social interaction, act like a complete creep! All to get that sweet, sweet nectar into your body!"
Or they don't:
"Bud Light: preferred beer of total douchebags!"
It's hard to imagine they're going for the latter, so: yeah! Bud Light, everyone! I know you and your girlfriend had separate plans for the day, but forget that shit! Barge into her book club! Disrupt that fucker! Get all the women drunk and try for an orgy! Invite your equally lame (and apparently subliterate) friends over and turn it into some sort of entirely undeserved mixer! Oh, and because the women are women, they will know their place and acquiesce quietly to your boorish behavior in spite of their reservations! Here we go!
Back when I made this post, I mentioned a second ad besides the Dodge ad in question that involved the Founding Fathers in a questionable way. Here it is:
Ben Franklin was a noted lover of beer. Without knowing anything about his preferences, though, I feel like he would not have been a Bud Light drinker.
Washington: "Where the blazes is Jefferson?"
Founding Father 2: "T.J.? He's probably still writing that 'declaration.'"
I'm not sure who the second guy is supposed to be. Alexander Hamilton? John Adams? James Madison? He sort of looks like Ben Franklin to me, but that other guy is supposed to be Franklin. The hat and coat are reminiscent of Paul Revere, but calling Paul Revere a "founding father" is a real stretch.
[Jefferson rides in and holds up two six-packs of Bud Light]
Jefferson: "Gentlemen!"
FF2: "Here we go!"
It's about time someone invented shitty beer!
[James Brown's "Living in America" plays]
Washington [dancing with a woman]: "Would you like to be the second lady?"
No, you guys, Jefferson was the philanderer. It's like you don't care about American history!
Eventually:
Washington: "We should do this every Fourth of July!"
The Fourth of July: celebration of American independence, or excuse to break out some terrible light beer and hit on every woman in sight? You be the judge.
This ad doesn't really offend me, but as with the Dodge ad, I find the use of figures from American history as pitchmen to be weird and off-putting. Here at least it's clearly intended to be funny; surely no one would take away from this that Washington and Jefferson would have necessarily endorsed Bud Light. Either way, it seems just a bit strange and/or inappropriate to have an ad where one of the Founding Fathers outright shits on the Declaration of Independence, regardless of why.
Showing posts with label beer ads do tend to suck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beer ads do tend to suck. Show all posts
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I hope they serve Bud Light Golden Wheat in hell
I don't know where exactly to put the blame for this, because it's an epidemic that's really been going around over the last couple years. White Castle compared eating its barbecue pork slider to attending a burlesque show in which a human in pig costume is drenched in barbecue sauce à la Flashdance. Burger King suggested that Whopper Juniors are produced when a hamburger has sex with a human woman. Even the typically sedate Reese's opted for an ad implying that its peanut butter eggs were the result of amorous behavior between a chocolate bunny and a jar of PB. Leave it to Bud Light not just to continue this trend but to somehow up the ante.
You might have seen this ad during the recent Saturday Night Live episode in which Bud Light bought almost all of the ad space to pimp its new Golden Wheat variety. And then, if you died of a heart attack later that night and went to hell, you probably saw it on the big screen down there, played at a volume loud enough to drown out the wails of the damned.
Oh yeah.
You might have seen this ad during the recent Saturday Night Live episode in which Bud Light bought almost all of the ad space to pimp its new Golden Wheat variety. And then, if you died of a heart attack later that night and went to hell, you probably saw it on the big screen down there, played at a volume loud enough to drown out the wails of the damned.
Stodgy Boss Type: "Bud Light and Golden Wheat? I thought that was never gonna happen."
Woman 1: "Of course it was going to happen."
Woman 2: "She practically threw herself at him."
Before I go any further, let me just clear this up: yes, I get the joke. Bud Light and Golden Wheat! It's like they're people! Hilarious! The problem is that the joke is (a) terrible and (b) ultimately rather disgusting.
Dude-Bro 1: "Ask her out, I told him. You're America's favorite beer."
Some Other Guy: "You could see he wanted her... we all wanted her."
I'm sorry, you all wanted... to have sex with a vaguely anthropomorphic sheaf of wheat? I guess the problem there is it would merely have resulted in Golden Wheat Urine, which as a beverage ranks at least one notch below Bud Light.
Dude-Bro 1: "Bud Light sealed the deal."
[Scene of Bud Light and Golden Wheat getting it on in the elevator]
Because, I mean, that's what I want to think happened. Do I want to be told about the taste of the beer? Of course not! What I want to know is, if this beer's existence could have been the result of sexual activity, what two things would have fucked to produce it? The answer, of course: golden wheat, and regular Bud Light. (I would also have accepted Budweiser and light golden wheat. As if that would ever happen.)
Security Guard: "Oh... that's nice."
No. It is not.
Announcer: "Introducing Bud Light Golden Wheat. Light beer, huge-"
Huge penis? Huge erection? Huge double-D-cup wheat boobs?
Announcer: "-flavor."
Boring.
Announcer: "They hooked up, and you're gonna fall in love."
I'm going to "fall in love" with my toilet bowl, at any rate. Lord. It isn't funny, and it isn't appetizing. If you insist on using sex to sell things, can't it be regular human sex? Why is the food always doing the procreating?
I know what you're thinking. "There's no way it gets worse than that." But you're wrong!
Oh yeah.
Woman 1: "At first we were against it."
Mostly because the idea of beer having sex with a cereal crop was just head-spinning.
Woman 2: "He's so not your type."
Woman 1: "He goes out, like, every night!"
[Shot of a human woman grinding against Bud Light in a club]
Is this a metaphor? I don't even know anymore. I guess we've already opened up the possibility of humans having sex with either of these anthropomorphic monstrosities in the other ad.
Woman 3 (2 again?): "You know, eventually he took to what she liked, learned about her..."
Woman 1: "He really made an effort."
Thank God! I was worried this beer I was drinking was the result of a sweaty, lust-fueled elevator hookup. But maybe it had more to do with monogamous relationship sex. America!
Woman 1: "But there really is a fine line between romance and stalking."
That's right, ladies. If you're not interested in a guy, you don't need to put up with him serenading you from outside your window. That's called stalking.
Woman 3 and/or 2: "Yeah, but he walked it like a pro."
Just kidding! If a man climbs to your window on a ladder, it just means he wants you so much that it's your feminine duty to submit to his advances! Good thing we have beer commercials to teach us important lessons like this.
For good measure, we get another wheat/beer sex scene, or whatever that's supposed to be. It's not like Bud Light's non-sex ads for Golden Wheat tell you all that much about the beer - the thesis of this one boils down to "Wheat: probably tasty" - and I guess Bud Light sells itself for the most part, but man. The whole campaign just strikes me as a ploy aimed squarely at the post-frat audience - hey, you like beer, right? Do you also like sex and jokes about sex? Well, we've got a new beer flavor and we're advertising it with sex and/or sex jokes! And just in case anyone was unclear on the target, here's a joke about how stalking can be easily construed as romance, right out of the Tucker Max handbook.
The irony of all this is that wheat beer strikes me as more of a specialty thing, not exactly the drink of choice for guys heading off to the bar to pound six Bud Lights. (Also, it's somewhat hilarious that Bud Light is going with the tagline "Huge flavor!" when wheat beer is known to be light on account of the fact that "wheat contributes very little flavor to a beer." Good call there!) Wheat beer is not the drink of choice for the typical Bud Light crowd, and somehow I doubt that even they have the power to make it so. On the other hand, that beer totally fucked that wheat. Get two, bro! This oughta be good.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Say, that's original!
All right, Wieden + Kennedy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: create a commercial for Heineken Premium Light beer. And do it without ripping off about fifteen other commercials.
No, without ripping off fifteen other commercials! Without!
First of all, there is no excuse for this ad to be a minute long. It's the same goddamn thing over and over again, for sixty seconds. What a waste.
Second of all, does the structure of this commercial seem, oh, I don't know, slightly familiar?
Well, well. It's not just the "circle of giving," either, it's the particular gambit of having the ad start and end in the same place - which is to say, paradoxically. That's a pretty specific choice you have to make - or, in this case, steal.
The idea of "passing the love" is also "borrowed" from about seven quintillion Coke ads. Like this one. Or this one. Or, basically, every single ad in the Coke oeuvre ever. And as ridiculous as that concept is when applied to caffeinated soda, seeing it used for an alcoholic beverage just makes me wince. I'm glad that cigarettes aren't allowed to advertise on TV anymore, but sometimes you have to wonder at the justification for letting beer companies pitch their product in all kinds of life-bettering ways when other harmful consumer products have been banned from the airwaves.
At any rate, I think Wieden + Kennedy can do better than this. Here are some suggestions I have in keeping with their general theme:
* A friendly, beer-drinking clown helps stop the Heinekenburglar from stealing all the beer in GreenBottleLand.
* Two actors portraying Heineken Light and a domestic light beer stand in front of a white background and discuss their differences.
* Lipizzaner stallions tote a Heineken wagon through a snowy landscape.
* A woman runs into a room full of drones watching a dystopian Bud Light ad and throws a Heineken bottle through the screen.
Any one of those should work pretty well.
No, without ripping off fifteen other commercials! Without!
First of all, there is no excuse for this ad to be a minute long. It's the same goddamn thing over and over again, for sixty seconds. What a waste.
Second of all, does the structure of this commercial seem, oh, I don't know, slightly familiar?
Well, well. It's not just the "circle of giving," either, it's the particular gambit of having the ad start and end in the same place - which is to say, paradoxically. That's a pretty specific choice you have to make - or, in this case, steal.
The idea of "passing the love" is also "borrowed" from about seven quintillion Coke ads. Like this one. Or this one. Or, basically, every single ad in the Coke oeuvre ever. And as ridiculous as that concept is when applied to caffeinated soda, seeing it used for an alcoholic beverage just makes me wince. I'm glad that cigarettes aren't allowed to advertise on TV anymore, but sometimes you have to wonder at the justification for letting beer companies pitch their product in all kinds of life-bettering ways when other harmful consumer products have been banned from the airwaves.
At any rate, I think Wieden + Kennedy can do better than this. Here are some suggestions I have in keeping with their general theme:
* A friendly, beer-drinking clown helps stop the Heinekenburglar from stealing all the beer in GreenBottleLand.
* Two actors portraying Heineken Light and a domestic light beer stand in front of a white background and discuss their differences.
* Lipizzaner stallions tote a Heineken wagon through a snowy landscape.
* A woman runs into a room full of drones watching a dystopian Bud Light ad and throws a Heineken bottle through the screen.
Any one of those should work pretty well.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Beer heaven can wait
Unless you're a rowdy drunk in the bleachers at a baseball game, is anyone's idea of heaven a place where the only beer is Miller Lite?
First off, a couple things about the bar itself. I think that having a basketball game playing under your air hockey game would be really distracting. Already this is not seeming very heavenly. Also, the weird reclining chair right at the bar? Beer Heaven needs to hire some better designers.
Announcer: "Only one beer is good enough for Beer Heaven."
"Only one beer - ours, of course - is good enough for a place that only exists inside of an ad that we created to promote that very same beer." This reminds me of those DiSaronno ads where people are inexplicably frequenting bars that stock nothing but amaretto; if you like beer enough that being in "Beer Heaven" is something that might appeal to you, I'm guessing you probably don't like Miller Lite enough for it to be your beer of choice in this eternal bliss. But hey, anything's possible when you make stuff up. Like how Dr. Pepper is the only soft drink served in the legendary city of El Dorado, or how the Purple Grawnaks, an alien race that inhabits a planet in orbit around Betelguese, are suckers for the tangy zip of Miracle Whip.
Announcer: "Miller Lite - the ultimate light beer."
This may be true, but is it really something worth bragging about? It's kind of like a bag of wet coffee grounds promoting itself as "the ultimate garbage."
First off, a couple things about the bar itself. I think that having a basketball game playing under your air hockey game would be really distracting. Already this is not seeming very heavenly. Also, the weird reclining chair right at the bar? Beer Heaven needs to hire some better designers.
Announcer: "Only one beer is good enough for Beer Heaven."
"Only one beer - ours, of course - is good enough for a place that only exists inside of an ad that we created to promote that very same beer." This reminds me of those DiSaronno ads where people are inexplicably frequenting bars that stock nothing but amaretto; if you like beer enough that being in "Beer Heaven" is something that might appeal to you, I'm guessing you probably don't like Miller Lite enough for it to be your beer of choice in this eternal bliss. But hey, anything's possible when you make stuff up. Like how Dr. Pepper is the only soft drink served in the legendary city of El Dorado, or how the Purple Grawnaks, an alien race that inhabits a planet in orbit around Betelguese, are suckers for the tangy zip of Miracle Whip.
Announcer: "Miller Lite - the ultimate light beer."
This may be true, but is it really something worth bragging about? It's kind of like a bag of wet coffee grounds promoting itself as "the ultimate garbage."
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Note to self: TiVo next NFL game
Say, did anyone get a chance to see that football game Saturday night? I can almost guarantee you did. Because if you owned a television and had it turned on, it would have been difficult not to see the Patriots-Giants game since it was playing on two network stations. And a cable station. Yes, the NFL made sure America was able to watch the Patriots' pursuit of a perfect season. They also made sure that America was able to watch several pieces of excrement disguised as commercials. Here, reproduced for your convenience, are two:
Blatant male chauvinism just sells, okay?
Scene: Diner customers sitting around giving the cable guy a hard time because his company doesn't carry the NFL Network.
Guy #1: Hey man, what's going on with the NFL Network? How do you still not have that channel?
Here's why: because they took games you used to be able to see for free on network television and made you pay for them. Some cable companies, like Time Warner, are resisting the $0.61 monthly charge that the NFL Network wants their customers to pay. I guess carrying like 8 live games a season and virtually no other worthwhile coverage aside from hour after hour of hilarious Rich Eisen commentary isn't the most compelling television package.
Cable Guy: Not my call. The brass says they can't charge people for channels they don't want.
How dare companies not shove a shitty product down consumers' throats and make them pay for it? This is still America, isn't it?
Guy #2: Channels they don't want! You think I want four channels just for women?
You said it! Finally something we can all agree on. Who needs women and their four stupid women-only TV channels? I could do without Oxygen and the Oprah SuperStation and The Menstruation Network. Just let me have regular, mass-appeal, non-gender-specific channels like Spike and Versus and family-centered stuff like that. Now give daddy back the remote.
Guy #2: I was in Korea.
Korean War veterans hate women's television. Especially the female veterans.
Guy #3: You can have those shopping channels back if you want.
You can take anything back that's historically female-oriented and in some small, unquantifiable way prevents me from watching football.
Waitress (aka Token Female): All I see is makeover shows and cage-fighting.
Have you seen the cage-fighting on C-SPAN2's Book TV? It's so crazy. All I can say is, David Sedaris may write like a fairy, but in the Doom Cage he is 130 pounds of twisted steel. Appointment viewing, okay?
Guy #4: How is cage-fighting more popular than the NFL?
Not more popular, it's just less of a maniacal corporate scheme to bilk football fans out of the rest of the money they're not spending on season tickets, jerseys, FatHeads and the like.
If properly executed, I suppose this could have been funny:
This is part of a series of ads where Coors Light drinkers ask NFL coaches various beer-related questions and are answered by responses from actual press conferences. The technique of interspersing actual interview footage with fake questions is not a new idea, and people like Stephen Colbert have used it successfully. These commercials, however, just fall flat.
The main problem for me is that coaches do not take questions from non-journalist frat guys holding beer cans at their press conferences. And these guys are pretty obnoxious about interrupting, too. If you're not familiar with former Cardinals coach Dennis Green's comments here, they refer to a humiliating last-minute loss to the 2006 Chicago Bears. Green basically lost it in the post-game press conference and had a well-documented melt-down. Naturally, he wanted to profit off of his shit fit:
Guy #1: Hey coach! Those guys just took off with all your cold, refreshing Coors Light!
Wait, what? Why would a coach have an amount of Coors Light sitting around the press room? And why do you have to force in "cold, refreshing" in such a painful way?
Guy #1: Who do they think they are?
Dennis Green: They are who we thought they were!
What bothers me here is the corny, forced set-up "question." Isn't there a team of copywriters somewhere who can come up with a decent way to execute this?
Guy #2: They are who you thought they were?... Okay, well, if you knew who they were, why didn't you stop them?
Green: We let 'em off the hook!
I guess that vaguely answers the guy's question. The commercials ends with another unfunny line while the fratty guys stand around awkwardly clutching their beers. The weird part is there are funnier parts of Green's press conference that weren't used in this commercial (i.e. "If you want to crown 'em, then crown their ass!"), but for some reason Coors Light prefers the weak, obnoxious comedy that's been the hallmark of this campaign for the last several years. Maybe coaches will start acting like morons just to get a spot in the next year's Coors Light commercials.
Week 17 is almost over. Playoffs are starting up. Advertisers are editing their foulest, most over-produced commercials as we speak. Who's excited for the SuperBowl?
Blatant male chauvinism just sells, okay?
Scene: Diner customers sitting around giving the cable guy a hard time because his company doesn't carry the NFL Network.
Guy #1: Hey man, what's going on with the NFL Network? How do you still not have that channel?
Here's why: because they took games you used to be able to see for free on network television and made you pay for them. Some cable companies, like Time Warner, are resisting the $0.61 monthly charge that the NFL Network wants their customers to pay. I guess carrying like 8 live games a season and virtually no other worthwhile coverage aside from hour after hour of hilarious Rich Eisen commentary isn't the most compelling television package.
Cable Guy: Not my call. The brass says they can't charge people for channels they don't want.
How dare companies not shove a shitty product down consumers' throats and make them pay for it? This is still America, isn't it?
Guy #2: Channels they don't want! You think I want four channels just for women?
You said it! Finally something we can all agree on. Who needs women and their four stupid women-only TV channels? I could do without Oxygen and the Oprah SuperStation and The Menstruation Network. Just let me have regular, mass-appeal, non-gender-specific channels like Spike and Versus and family-centered stuff like that. Now give daddy back the remote.
Guy #2: I was in Korea.
Korean War veterans hate women's television. Especially the female veterans.
Guy #3: You can have those shopping channels back if you want.
You can take anything back that's historically female-oriented and in some small, unquantifiable way prevents me from watching football.
Waitress (aka Token Female): All I see is makeover shows and cage-fighting.
Have you seen the cage-fighting on C-SPAN2's Book TV? It's so crazy. All I can say is, David Sedaris may write like a fairy, but in the Doom Cage he is 130 pounds of twisted steel. Appointment viewing, okay?
Guy #4: How is cage-fighting more popular than the NFL?
Not more popular, it's just less of a maniacal corporate scheme to bilk football fans out of the rest of the money they're not spending on season tickets, jerseys, FatHeads and the like.
If properly executed, I suppose this could have been funny:
This is part of a series of ads where Coors Light drinkers ask NFL coaches various beer-related questions and are answered by responses from actual press conferences. The technique of interspersing actual interview footage with fake questions is not a new idea, and people like Stephen Colbert have used it successfully. These commercials, however, just fall flat.
The main problem for me is that coaches do not take questions from non-journalist frat guys holding beer cans at their press conferences. And these guys are pretty obnoxious about interrupting, too. If you're not familiar with former Cardinals coach Dennis Green's comments here, they refer to a humiliating last-minute loss to the 2006 Chicago Bears. Green basically lost it in the post-game press conference and had a well-documented melt-down. Naturally, he wanted to profit off of his shit fit:
Guy #1: Hey coach! Those guys just took off with all your cold, refreshing Coors Light!
Wait, what? Why would a coach have an amount of Coors Light sitting around the press room? And why do you have to force in "cold, refreshing" in such a painful way?
Guy #1: Who do they think they are?
Dennis Green: They are who we thought they were!
What bothers me here is the corny, forced set-up "question." Isn't there a team of copywriters somewhere who can come up with a decent way to execute this?
Guy #2: They are who you thought they were?... Okay, well, if you knew who they were, why didn't you stop them?
Green: We let 'em off the hook!
I guess that vaguely answers the guy's question. The commercials ends with another unfunny line while the fratty guys stand around awkwardly clutching their beers. The weird part is there are funnier parts of Green's press conference that weren't used in this commercial (i.e. "If you want to crown 'em, then crown their ass!"), but for some reason Coors Light prefers the weak, obnoxious comedy that's been the hallmark of this campaign for the last several years. Maybe coaches will start acting like morons just to get a spot in the next year's Coors Light commercials.
Week 17 is almost over. Playoffs are starting up. Advertisers are editing their foulest, most over-produced commercials as we speak. Who's excited for the SuperBowl?
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Suspension of disbelief required
Commercials don't always have to show situations exactly how they would play out in reality. Some advertisers, however, take this license too far. They appear to live in an alternate reality where the little bothers of daily life simply don't exist:
Anyone ever been to a bar? Ever ordered a drink? Ever been a regular male human trying to order a drink? You don't just make eye contact with the bartender from 50 feet away in a packed bar and use gestures to get yourself another beer. You saddle up next to the counter and you scream for about 5 minutes until you finally get his attention. Oh, yeah, and then you have to do this thing called paying. I guess maybe this dude has a tab open, but that bartender has somehow remembered his name among all those other people's?
Also, since when did popular bars become baseball stadium stands? This guy didn't order a dog and a Malt Cup at a Mets game, he got a Heineken at some semi-chic watering hole.
Tagline: It's all about the beer.
It's not the most pretentious ad I've seen, but it's pretty obnoxious. I guess Heineken people live in a special, rarefied world where everyone at any given bar conspires to facilitate your import beer drinking (except the guy who steals it, of course). This ad thinks its pretty clever, pretty hip. But the joke is played, and poorly thought-out. Also? You guys are hardly the first to use that "Tempted" song in an ad.
Anyone ever been to a bar? Ever ordered a drink? Ever been a regular male human trying to order a drink? You don't just make eye contact with the bartender from 50 feet away in a packed bar and use gestures to get yourself another beer. You saddle up next to the counter and you scream for about 5 minutes until you finally get his attention. Oh, yeah, and then you have to do this thing called paying. I guess maybe this dude has a tab open, but that bartender has somehow remembered his name among all those other people's?
Also, since when did popular bars become baseball stadium stands? This guy didn't order a dog and a Malt Cup at a Mets game, he got a Heineken at some semi-chic watering hole.
Tagline: It's all about the beer.
It's not the most pretentious ad I've seen, but it's pretty obnoxious. I guess Heineken people live in a special, rarefied world where everyone at any given bar conspires to facilitate your import beer drinking (except the guy who steals it, of course). This ad thinks its pretty clever, pretty hip. But the joke is played, and poorly thought-out. Also? You guys are hardly the first to use that "Tempted" song in an ad.
Monday, October 15, 2007
This Commercial Contains No Arsenic
When the only thing you have to say about your product is what is doesn't contain, you have a marketing problem:
Scene: (Guys singing a drinking song in squeaky high-pitched voices and swilling fictional "Beck's with Helium.")
Voiceover: We could have put strange things in our beer, but we didn't.
High-pitched voices are hilarious to people over the age of 21, no question about that. But this is an interesting concept; the idea of stuff your product doesn't have. Why haven't other companies used this in their commercials?
Apple: We could have put minced garlic inside our iPod Nanos, but we didn't.
Ford: We could have made our pick-ups out of styrofoam, but we didn't.
Coca-Cola: We could have called our cola "Pepsi," but we didn't.
GE: We could have made watchable commercials, but we didn't.
Voiceover: Beck's -- choosing to use only 4 all-natural ingredients for over 125 years.
Nice. It's a good thing they put this in their ad, because Beck's is the only do-gooder who uses natural ingredients. Hey Budweiser! PWNED! Beck's is on to your little game and all that chemical waste you pump into your beers! You hillbillies probably use something disgusting like, uh, chicken hearts or something in your beer! Nasty, dude, just nas - wait, I'm being told there's not actually any chicken hearts, or for that matter, any artificial ingredients involved in Budweiser. Well, try doing it for 125 years, assholes!.... oooohhhh, shit... It's apparently been 131.
Well, how about fellow European brewer Heineken? What's in your beer, you big fakers. You nerdy Dutch chemists with your genetically-modified tulips and your -- oh, wait, what? You're using water, malted barley, hops and yeast to brew your beer? Well, whatever, Beck's only uses FOUR, dude! Four ingredi - oh wait, that is only four ingredients....
I wonder how the Beer Drinker demographic crosses over into the All-Natural Foods demographic, anyway.
The lesson here is not to advertise your product by what it isn't. The title of this post refers to an old adage from Ye Olde Ad Man David Ogilvy that you should avoid using negatives in your ads (his book used to be obligatory reading material in college marketing classes.) The danger is that the consumer could miss the negative altogether -- in Ogilvy's example, if you're a salt company and your headline is "Our salt contains no arsenic," people perusing a magazine or flipping through channels could read it as "This salt contains arsenic." And in Ogilvy's time, you got a lot more of the consumer's attention, because there was a lot less advertising out there.
Just think about what you're competing with now -- talking about what your product isn't will confuse people when you've only got a tiny fraction of their attention. Best case scenario, your consumers will get a little laugh. Worst case, your audience will think you're selling something you're not.
Now why can't I find that new Beck's with Helium at the liquor store...
Scene: (Guys singing a drinking song in squeaky high-pitched voices and swilling fictional "Beck's with Helium.")
Voiceover: We could have put strange things in our beer, but we didn't.
High-pitched voices are hilarious to people over the age of 21, no question about that. But this is an interesting concept; the idea of stuff your product doesn't have. Why haven't other companies used this in their commercials?
Apple: We could have put minced garlic inside our iPod Nanos, but we didn't.
Ford: We could have made our pick-ups out of styrofoam, but we didn't.
Coca-Cola: We could have called our cola "Pepsi," but we didn't.
GE: We could have made watchable commercials, but we didn't.
Voiceover: Beck's -- choosing to use only 4 all-natural ingredients for over 125 years.
Nice. It's a good thing they put this in their ad, because Beck's is the only do-gooder who uses natural ingredients. Hey Budweiser! PWNED! Beck's is on to your little game and all that chemical waste you pump into your beers! You hillbillies probably use something disgusting like, uh, chicken hearts or something in your beer! Nasty, dude, just nas - wait, I'm being told there's not actually any chicken hearts, or for that matter, any artificial ingredients involved in Budweiser. Well, try doing it for 125 years, assholes!.... oooohhhh, shit... It's apparently been 131.
Well, how about fellow European brewer Heineken? What's in your beer, you big fakers. You nerdy Dutch chemists with your genetically-modified tulips and your -- oh, wait, what? You're using water, malted barley, hops and yeast to brew your beer? Well, whatever, Beck's only uses FOUR, dude! Four ingredi - oh wait, that is only four ingredients....
I wonder how the Beer Drinker demographic crosses over into the All-Natural Foods demographic, anyway.
The lesson here is not to advertise your product by what it isn't. The title of this post refers to an old adage from Ye Olde Ad Man David Ogilvy that you should avoid using negatives in your ads (his book used to be obligatory reading material in college marketing classes.) The danger is that the consumer could miss the negative altogether -- in Ogilvy's example, if you're a salt company and your headline is "Our salt contains no arsenic," people perusing a magazine or flipping through channels could read it as "This salt contains arsenic." And in Ogilvy's time, you got a lot more of the consumer's attention, because there was a lot less advertising out there.
Just think about what you're competing with now -- talking about what your product isn't will confuse people when you've only got a tiny fraction of their attention. Best case scenario, your consumers will get a little laugh. Worst case, your audience will think you're selling something you're not.
Now why can't I find that new Beck's with Helium at the liquor store...
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Stereotypes that won't fill you up and always let you down
I know this commercial aired during the Super Bowl, but it ran again tonight during the baseball game and I was struck by just how awful it is. It's one thing to not be funny - and Carlos Mencia is definitely not funny - but, well, then there's this shit.
I can't even begin to count all the ways in which this commercial offends my sensibilities. But let's try.
1. It co-opts the form of the already worn-out "white guys talk like this, but black guys talk like this" late-80s schtick as a way of using stereotypes to sell beer.
2. It does so in a way that is thoroughly unfunny, by taking Carlos Mencia's already unfunny act and watering it down even further by distilling it to, "Hispanics say 'holmes,' but New Yorkers ask if you have a problem with that."
3. It attempts to mine cheap laughs out of the fact that people from other countries sometimes pronounce vowel sounds differently than we do. Okay, I lied, this is one of the best things about it. The whole "oo instead of uh" thing that the ad ends with? Comedy fucking gold. The only reason they don't end every commercial with a funny-talkin' Indian guy is that doctors cautioned about a national epidemic of pants-wetting.
4. It unironically tries to use the phrase "no speak English" as a joke, as though no one had ever heard that one before.
5-1,783. It stars Carlos Mencia. I suppose in some ways he's the perfect beer pitchman - he's abrasive, unfunny, and no one is better suited to make awful jokes about thin stereotypes. Sounds like most beer ads, doesn't it?
I can't even begin to count all the ways in which this commercial offends my sensibilities. But let's try.
1. It co-opts the form of the already worn-out "white guys talk like this, but black guys talk like this" late-80s schtick as a way of using stereotypes to sell beer.
2. It does so in a way that is thoroughly unfunny, by taking Carlos Mencia's already unfunny act and watering it down even further by distilling it to, "Hispanics say 'holmes,' but New Yorkers ask if you have a problem with that."
3. It attempts to mine cheap laughs out of the fact that people from other countries sometimes pronounce vowel sounds differently than we do. Okay, I lied, this is one of the best things about it. The whole "oo instead of uh" thing that the ad ends with? Comedy fucking gold. The only reason they don't end every commercial with a funny-talkin' Indian guy is that doctors cautioned about a national epidemic of pants-wetting.
4. It unironically tries to use the phrase "no speak English" as a joke, as though no one had ever heard that one before.
5-1,783. It stars Carlos Mencia. I suppose in some ways he's the perfect beer pitchman - he's abrasive, unfunny, and no one is better suited to make awful jokes about thin stereotypes. Sounds like most beer ads, doesn't it?
Monday, July 9, 2007
Pain is funny. Oh wait, that's right, it's the opposite of that
Beer commercials are supposed to make you laugh, not wince:
What was funny about that? The dude might have lost an eye. The only mildly amusing part is the physical comedy of the way the man on the left falls backward. The fact that he had a rock thrown at his head, however, sort of negates this humor. Then, another low point, the "joke":
Guy lying on ground: I threw paper
Hmm, curious verb to use. I smell a "joke" set-up...
Guy who just threw a rock at a man's head: I threw a rock
Yep. Wow. Irresponsible, violent physical comedy paid off by a corny pun (actual rock for figurative "rock, paper, scissors" rock.) Now, it's time for the "bonus joke":
Other guy at party: Low five!
Oh, I get it. It's "low" because he's writhing in pain on the ground, and no one has helped him up! Haha!! That's funny! That's super funny! That's homeless-guy-lying-dead-in-the-street funny!!
This was a Super Bowl Ad, folks. It aired during the most prized advertising event of the year. How proud was Bud Light of this commercial? $2.6 million worth of proud. This ad was the fault of Bud Light's agency, DDB Chicago, which is weird because they were also responsible for a Bud Light ad in the same Super Bowl that I did think was funny. I guess they can't all be winners.
Beer companies seem to grant themselves ultimate creative freedom when they run ads. And with budgets that size, there's no reason for companies like Anheuser-Busch to be running total half-joke crap like this. If you're going to run ads that are basically just 30 second video jokes with product placement, at least make them funny. Try to avoid promoting casual violence, too.
What was funny about that? The dude might have lost an eye. The only mildly amusing part is the physical comedy of the way the man on the left falls backward. The fact that he had a rock thrown at his head, however, sort of negates this humor. Then, another low point, the "joke":
Guy lying on ground: I threw paper
Hmm, curious verb to use. I smell a "joke" set-up...
Guy who just threw a rock at a man's head: I threw a rock
Yep. Wow. Irresponsible, violent physical comedy paid off by a corny pun (actual rock for figurative "rock, paper, scissors" rock.) Now, it's time for the "bonus joke":
Other guy at party: Low five!
Oh, I get it. It's "low" because he's writhing in pain on the ground, and no one has helped him up! Haha!! That's funny! That's super funny! That's homeless-guy-lying-dead-in-the-street funny!!
This was a Super Bowl Ad, folks. It aired during the most prized advertising event of the year. How proud was Bud Light of this commercial? $2.6 million worth of proud. This ad was the fault of Bud Light's agency, DDB Chicago, which is weird because they were also responsible for a Bud Light ad in the same Super Bowl that I did think was funny. I guess they can't all be winners.
Beer companies seem to grant themselves ultimate creative freedom when they run ads. And with budgets that size, there's no reason for companies like Anheuser-Busch to be running total half-joke crap like this. If you're going to run ads that are basically just 30 second video jokes with product placement, at least make them funny. Try to avoid promoting casual violence, too.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Play hard, booze hard
Some commercials are misleading. Some are just outright irresponsible. And then there's this, which somehow belongs in a class by itself:
Do the people at Michelob know how drinking and exercise go together? (Answer: not well.) Michelob Ultra may not have a lot of carbs, but it has 4.2% alcohol by volume, which puts it on par with most mass-market beer. In other words, I hope these people are getting ready for some serious dehydration. (Also, fun fact! Carbohydrates are useful in providing energy that can be burned during exercise, so that the body does not have to deplete itself of more essential nutrients!) At least volleyball is sort of recreational as far as getting exercise goes, I guess. Of course, Michelob Ultra has other ads showing people biking and running, so I'm not going to cut them any slack. If you're jogging three miles and then knocking back a few cold ones, you probably deserve whatever alcohol-related fatigue is coming your way.
The alternate explanation is that these women are vampires and they're planning to get the men drunk and tired before they drain them of life-giving blood.
Do the people at Michelob know how drinking and exercise go together? (Answer: not well.) Michelob Ultra may not have a lot of carbs, but it has 4.2% alcohol by volume, which puts it on par with most mass-market beer. In other words, I hope these people are getting ready for some serious dehydration. (Also, fun fact! Carbohydrates are useful in providing energy that can be burned during exercise, so that the body does not have to deplete itself of more essential nutrients!) At least volleyball is sort of recreational as far as getting exercise goes, I guess. Of course, Michelob Ultra has other ads showing people biking and running, so I'm not going to cut them any slack. If you're jogging three miles and then knocking back a few cold ones, you probably deserve whatever alcohol-related fatigue is coming your way.
The alternate explanation is that these women are vampires and they're planning to get the men drunk and tired before they drain them of life-giving blood.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
The dumbest ad campaign in the world
Well, maybe not. But Dos Equis' new campaign, which runs concurrently on both TV and radio, is remarkably idiotic.
Few things grate on me more than ads that promote their products using things they just made up themselves as proof. The funny thing is that Dos Equis doesn't even do it well.
Narrator: "The police often question him, just because they find him interesting."
Okay. Sure they do.
Narrator: "His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body."
Is it Chuck Norris? It's Chuck Norris, right?
Narrator: "His blood smells like cologne."
That's... actually kind of gross.
Narrator: "He is... the most interesting man in the world."
Has this commercial made a compelling case for their subject being interesting? No. They've basically just ripped off the style of internet meme extraordinaire the Chuck Norris Facts, thrown in a handful of stupid visuals, and called it a day. But wait! Our imaginarily interesting pitchman has something to say!
Man of Questionable Interest: "I don't always drink beer..."
Come on, Dos Equis. Even your pitchman only uses your product sporadically?
MoQI: "...but when I do [inexplicably dramatic pause] I prefer Dos Equis."
Well, that's some testimonial! I'm definitely going to trust the opinion of the most interesting man in the world! Oh, I forgot. This is a guy you completely made up and have failed to prove is even remotely interesting. Other than that, I'm totally sold.
MoQI: "Stay thirsty, my friends."
Make up your fucking mind, Dos Equis. Between the pitchman admitting to only sometimes drinking beer and the exhortation to "stay thirsty" (by drinking less Dos Equis?), I'm not convinced that these guys want me to use their product at all! It just rings of bad technique, like they built around the "most interesting man" idea but forgot to follow standard ad rules that actually involve promotion of the product. The only way I could see this being worse is if MoQI said "I prefer Dos Equis, and also the occasional Michelob."
Few things grate on me more than ads that promote their products using things they just made up themselves as proof. The funny thing is that Dos Equis doesn't even do it well.
Narrator: "The police often question him, just because they find him interesting."
Okay. Sure they do.
Narrator: "His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body."
Is it Chuck Norris? It's Chuck Norris, right?
Narrator: "His blood smells like cologne."
That's... actually kind of gross.
Narrator: "He is... the most interesting man in the world."
Has this commercial made a compelling case for their subject being interesting? No. They've basically just ripped off the style of internet meme extraordinaire the Chuck Norris Facts, thrown in a handful of stupid visuals, and called it a day. But wait! Our imaginarily interesting pitchman has something to say!
Man of Questionable Interest: "I don't always drink beer..."
Come on, Dos Equis. Even your pitchman only uses your product sporadically?
MoQI: "...but when I do [inexplicably dramatic pause] I prefer Dos Equis."
Well, that's some testimonial! I'm definitely going to trust the opinion of the most interesting man in the world! Oh, I forgot. This is a guy you completely made up and have failed to prove is even remotely interesting. Other than that, I'm totally sold.
MoQI: "Stay thirsty, my friends."
Make up your fucking mind, Dos Equis. Between the pitchman admitting to only sometimes drinking beer and the exhortation to "stay thirsty" (by drinking less Dos Equis?), I'm not convinced that these guys want me to use their product at all! It just rings of bad technique, like they built around the "most interesting man" idea but forgot to follow standard ad rules that actually involve promotion of the product. The only way I could see this being worse is if MoQI said "I prefer Dos Equis, and also the occasional Michelob."
Friday, June 8, 2007
In Soviet Russia, beer uses YOU to get laid!
There is something seriously wrong with this Heineken ad.
"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me... a bottle of beer!" Well, unlike the makers of Heineken, I prefer my beer not to be hot. And I mean that both in a temperature sense and a sexual attractiveness sense. Really, did the people who made this ad even listen to the lyrics of the song, or did they just think it had a good beat? (Incidentally, the song itself is one of the worst in history, and that's before we even get into its implicit message, which is "I'm the one skank in town who'll let you put it in her butt.")
It's not just the words, either. How about the "main stage at Deja Vu" light show, and the insane security camera view? This is the best way they could think of to suggest that a beer is appealing, by anthropomorphizing it just so they can sexualize it? It frightens me to think that somewhere out there is an ad agency where this idea was pitched, and the guy who did it was neither fired on the spot nor at least laughed out of the room.
"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me... a bottle of beer!" Well, unlike the makers of Heineken, I prefer my beer not to be hot. And I mean that both in a temperature sense and a sexual attractiveness sense. Really, did the people who made this ad even listen to the lyrics of the song, or did they just think it had a good beat? (Incidentally, the song itself is one of the worst in history, and that's before we even get into its implicit message, which is "I'm the one skank in town who'll let you put it in her butt.")
It's not just the words, either. How about the "main stage at Deja Vu" light show, and the insane security camera view? This is the best way they could think of to suggest that a beer is appealing, by anthropomorphizing it just so they can sexualize it? It frightens me to think that somewhere out there is an ad agency where this idea was pitched, and the guy who did it was neither fired on the spot nor at least laughed out of the room.
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