Thursday Beer Ad Blogging
By Dan on Jan 24, 2008 in advertising
Those of you who have tuned-in to the NFL playoffs this season may have noticed that the folks at Anheuser-Busch are taking a new approach in promoting their flagship brew.
In the past, Budweiser was content on being known as a “beer,” an everyman libation for people who want to get drunk without being bothered by rich tastes or fragrant aromas. This was, and is, a solid strategy as more Bud is sold than any other beer, although less now than when Harry Caray was alive and imbibing.
In their new commercials, A-B prominently and repeatedly refers to Bud as a “lager.” It’s always been a lager, there’s been no change to the formula. It seems that the beer behemoth just wants to cash in on the cachet of the more descriptive designation. Not only do the new Budweiser commercials stress the word lager, they’re also set in a brew pub type atmosphere populated by people not adorned exclusively in team sports apparel. So, what gives? What’s A-B’s angle here?
Fear Real Beer: The heavy import that A-B warned you about.
People who think of beer as something more than simply a mechanism to deliver alcohol into their blood stream know that there are different types of beer. There are ales and stouts, porters and pilsners, and many other variations, including lagers. These people, connoisseurs if you will, tend to steer clear of diluted domestics, which they consider the “kiddy cocktails” of beer. Recently, this segment of the market has been growing, and it isn’t comprised entirely of the moneyed elite or beer snobs such as myself.*
Sales of micro/craft brews were up 17.6 percent last year and imports were up 10 percent, while sales of domestic beer rose a paltry 2.4 percent. Now granted, there were only 6.7 million barrels sold in the micro/craft category in 2006, while A-B sold 25.8 million barrels of Budweiser alone that same year. Still one doesn’t retain the throne of the King of Beers without attempting to squash any attempt at a coup, not matter how tiny the revolutionaries.
So what A-B is doing with Budweiser is what political strategists have been doing with candidates for years. Instead of changing the substance of a product (or actually giving it substance), you simply re-brand it to appeal to whatever demographic you are courting. If you want Bud to compete with tasty craft beers, just call it the Great American Lager. But be warned, you can pour a Bud into a pint glass and pretend that you appreciate the taste, but you’re still swilling the same watered-down concoction that made you throw up in the backseat of your friend’s car.
Bud isn’t the first mass-appeal product to try and recreate itself as a prestige brand. Hardee’s made gestures to the lower end of the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse crowd with their Angus burgers, but then wisely repositioned themselves towards those who aspire to obesity and heart disease (see: Philly Cheesesteak Thick Burger.) And K-Mart sought to shake off their blue light special image by introducing the Jaclyn Smith Collection, but as classy a dame as Jacky is, they still haven’t clicked with the DKNY set.
I don’t suspect that A-B will stick to their “seriously, Bud’s a lager” campaign for long. Now that their Dalmatian has leapt from the wagon to the Miller Lite truck, they’ll probably forget their snooty pretensions and seek revenge against their true market-share rival.** And they’ll continue to dominate the beer market.
*According to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, A-B’s King of Lagers ads are targeted at Hispanic “aspirers” who are looking to increase their social status by upgrading their beer.
**Yes, I know, that’s a Bud Light commercial. It all comes from the same vat, except for Michelob Ultra which comes directly from the water tap.
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That Guinness sure does look good! And it comes in handy too. If you are a quart low on motor oil and Auto Zone is closed just bust one of those stouts out and get back to some happy motoring.
Foster Brooks | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
Dan,
Great post. I don’t watch much by way of sports, so I miss a lot of the good ads for bad beer. I actually know someone in A-B marketing. She grew up here in Springfield, in fact. I’ll have to ask her about this fancy-pants stuff.
Myself, I occupy a space somewhere between beer snob and intravenous beer user. The older I get though, the more I find it harder to choke down the watery domestics.
Dave | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
I’m so impressed that you got the Ruth’s Chris reference right. So many people call it Ruth Chris’s..it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. Same thing with Nordsrom’s. Agh!
Ok sorry, you were talking about beer? We used to frequent a bowling alley in Chicago where they served the most watered down tap beer that we were sure came from some sort of Wyler’s Beer Mix.
nancy | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
Reading your article, I kept thinking that “American Beer” (Miller crap, A-B crap and etc. crap) used to be referred to as Pilsner – if only in the most technical definition. So I did a little checking . . .
Now we all know that the term “beer” is a generic, and all beers can be further classified. According to realbeer.com . . . beers fall into two broad categories: Those that are produced by top-fermenting yeasts (ales) and those that are made with bottom-fermenting yeasts (lagers).
Ales include everything with ale in the name (pale ale, amber ale, etc.), porters, stouts, Belgian specialty beers, wheat beers and many German specialty beers. They generally have a more robust taste, are more complex.
Lagers include pilsners, bocks and dopplebocks, Maerzens/Oktoberfests, Dortmunders and a few other styles found mostly in Germany.
Here’s the part I was looking for: American variations on the pilsner style dominate the U.S. beer landscape. The popularity of the original pilsner was well deserved, but its renown is ill served by the many brewers in different parts of the world who have used indifferent imitations to try to create a single international beer style at the expense of more characterful regional specialties. It is as though the whole world were to drink Rhine wines and forget about the very existence of Burgundy or Bordeaux.
DID YOU GET THAT? American Beer Companies are trying to create a ONE-BEER, ONE-WORLD ORDER – and force us to live in a society in which neither Burgundy nor Bordeaux even exist!!!!! I fear they will not stop until their Illuminati henchmen are installed as the permanent non-elected hereditary oligarchists who self-select from among their numbers in the form of a feudal system as it was in the Middle Ages? A-B must be stopped!!!!!!
Now is a perfect time to panic!
rock-robster | Jan 25, 2008 | Reply
RR
Put down the mouse and step AWAY from the computer.
nancy | Jan 25, 2008 | Reply
Dave,
Keep me posted if you’re able to talk to your friend about A-B’s marketing strategy. It’s quite curious; I would have never guessed that they were targeting Hispanics with these ads.
Nancy,
I love the Wyler’s reference and will probably use it put down some Bud Select bootlicker the next time he forces me to defend my favorite ale.
Rock,
I like the way you think.
Death to fascists and weak-ass beer!
Foster,
See Rock’s comments to learn how you have been manipulated and are tacitly supporting a totalitarian adult beverage regime with your continued purchasing of Budweiser products.
Join the resistance, drink a Guinness!
Thanks for commenting,
Dan
Dan | Jan 25, 2008 | Reply