Beer Advertising: The NYT versus Reality

Here’s an excerpt from a 5/1/06 NYT article by Julie Bosman, entitled “Beer Ads That Ditch the Bikinis, but Add Threads of Thought”:

If Miller Brewing is to be believed, the days of beer commercials stocked exclusively with brainless party boys and buxom blondes are over. Instead, the company that brought the world the infamous “Catfight” ad is trying to atone for its past by introducing an ad campaign today that Miller says is intended to rise above the calculated inanity of most beer ads.

The commercials revolve around group discussions starring men who Miller says “have defined in their own way what manhood is all about.” Among others, they are the former National Football League star Jerome Bettis; the World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler Triple H; Aron Ralston, the rock climber who cut off part of his arm after being pinned under a boulder; and the discussion group’s leader, the actor Burt Reynolds.

“They are true men,” said Erv Frederick, the vice president for marketing at Miller Brewing, owned by SABMiller. “They all have a lot of substance, and they have their own unique personal style.”

In the ads, the actors are assembled around a large square table, sitting before beer bottles and solemnly debating “Man Laws,” the rules by which men should ideally govern themselves. When toasting, should one clink tops or bottoms? (Answer: bottoms.) Is the high-five officially played out? (Yes.) How long must a man wait before dating his buddy’s ex-girlfriend? (Six months.)

To some extent, Miller keeps its no-dumb-guys promises. There is no raucous behavior and no sexual innuendo, other than one veiled reference to “Brokeback Mountain.” The subject of crushing beer cans on one’s forehead is mentioned, but the men decide that the act is no longer funny. “It’s lame,” the oddly Plasticine-looking Mr. Reynolds says sternly.

Mr. Frederick said that the company “wanted to move beyond that stereotype of men as sophomoric” or as “the lowest common denominator.”

“We’re trying to position it as a smarter, more intelligent light beer,” he said.

Miller has a lot of making up to do. Along with beer companies like Coors, which once produced an ad disguised as a love song to sexy female twins, Miller has produced many commercials that some consumers found sexist.

This is the company that, in 2003, produced “Catfight,” a television spot featuring two voluptuous women who, while arguing over whether Miller Lite “tastes great” or is “less filling,” tear off each other’s clothes and wind up wrestling in wet cement.

Since that commercial, Miller has tried to emphasize the taste of its beer and a sense of nostalgia for the brand. Last fall, it reintroduced its “Girl in the Moon” in ads for Miller High Life, hoping that the retro image would attract young female consumers.

The “Man Laws” ads are partly inspired by another Miller Lite standard: the tastes great-less filling debate, said Alex Bogusky, the chief creative officer at Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami, the agency that created the ads and which is a unit of MDC Partners.

“Beer is so tied in to male culture,” Mr. Bogusky said. “And I think the tradition of sort of settling things over a beer and figuring out the world over beer is a strong one. It’s one of the nicer aspects of beer, and it’s one of the reasons that it’s a powerful cultural beverage.”

The campaign also includes a Web site, manlaws.com, which is to be accessible starting today. Visitors to the site will eventually be able to search for Man Laws and place votes on future Man Law questions.

Miller first made Crispin its creative agency of record in February after the company decided to “try to gain a consistency of voice that we thought one agency could provide us,” Mr. Frederick said. Crispin is also developing a knack for ad campaigns that appeal to a purely young male demographic, like its ads for the Volkswagen GTI that portray women as nagging girlfriends who interfere with the relationship between man and car….

[NB: this blog discussed those VW ads here]

Whew, what a relief that Miller Lite advertising is so much more enlightened now. Because if the NYT reports it, it must be true, right? So let’s check in with one of those “man laws” commercials via Amanda at Pandagon:

…I’m halfway watching [television] tonight and I just saw a commercial with a bunch of men sitting around drinking Miller Lite and debating whether or not it’s cool to carry a beer by sticking your thumb in the top of the bottle to carry it. Since no one in the history of the world has ever actually thought that was a good idea, I found myself incapable of suspending my disbelief.

But that’s not what shocked me about this commercial. The entire fake debate about sticking your thumb in the bottle was just an excuse for the next part of the commercial where it was smugly agreed upon that, and I swear to god they said this, “You poke it, you own it.” And in case you didn’t get the point that this was”cute”sleaziness, they repeated a few times and then declared that poking equals ownership was the new Man Law.

You can confirm that this is an actual “thinking man’s” beer commercial here by accessing “videos,” though you will have to sit through several others beforehand.

–Ann Bartow