Sunday, May 07, 2006

Corporate bored rooms of the swillocracy.


For most of the year, the Curmudgeon avoids television, but the NBA playoffs are an exception.

In practical terms, this means that most of the time, I can avoid the more egregious marketing excesses of America’s bloated megabrewers. Time spent at my own pub, and at Louisville-area brewpubs, is time spent away from the influence of Bud, Miller and Coors.

We know that although the biggest brewery players continue to dominate the market, their sales are stagnant. After two weeks of watching their television advertisements, it’s easy to see that they’re as bereft of new sales ideas as they are of barley, hops and balls.

Perhaps that’s the inevitable outcome of decades spent devaluing the essence of the product – beer – and exalting the mechanism – marketing. Smoke and mirrors go only so far, even when it comes to liquid urine.

Miller is preparing to tout its eternally insipid Lite with a campaign that exalts rules of living for men, and features a motley collection of hack celebrities swilling alcoholic soda pop straight from the bottle.

When not engaged in displays of overt cultural imperialism (simply google A-B and soccer’s World Cup to see what I mean), Anheuser-Busch persists with its time-honored “how stupid can we make our customers look ” strategy with blurbs showing Cedric the Entertainer practicing bigamy for the sake of Dud Light, and a human daredevil undertaking impossible stunts – but not the most daunting task of all: Finding merit in A-B’s bland swill.

Coors mines similar terrain with its patronizing beer can liner ads, and abets the offense with the company’s ongoing fixation with temperature as sole determining factor of beer quality – typified by the clueless “Love Train” block party freeze-out.

In fact, the megabrewers’s current television advertising spots are so abysmal that they make the ubiquitous fast food and automotive envy blurbs seem Shakespearean by comparison.

Not really. Anyone for real beer? Real food?

Real anything?

3 comments:

The New Albanian said...

And I like the one where those making comments abide by my policy with regard to same.

Medrep, am I missing something?

The New Albanian said...

(Shrug) - No name calling contests for me.

It's a simple matter of respect, and perhaps one of self-respect.

Anonymity may increase comments (as though that were the goal), but as a cursory glance at other blogs will reveal, the practice of permitting masks abets the worst tendencies rather than to encouraging integrity and responsibility.

In most cases, anonymity is the death of civility. So far in our relationship, I have asked politely for you to abide by the house rules, and you repeatedly have refused to do so.

Readers are free to judge which of us has the fundamental problem.

The New Albanian said...

medrep said...

"last comment: Screw civility."

There you have it.

I'm sorry you feel that way, and I'm sorry that your opinions are so important that you don't possess the courage to put your name to them.

Goodbye.