Several questions ocurred to me while watching the recent ad-war between Bud and Miller.
1) Why would a company want to align itself with an annoying smarmy politician type, probably the single least popular archetype possible?
2) Wow, doesn't Budweiser seem really pissed off?
3) Has any of this ever made someone want to drink that swill?
Fortunately, Slate comes to the rescue with an ad report card covering the whole thing.
Like Seth, I eagerly await to see if Miller can come up with a response. All this attention has approximately 0% chance of causing me to drink anything made by one of these companies.
(Disclosure: OK, I admit it, I actually like High Life. But I'll do without the rest of it. )
I say let them tear each other to shreds, Maybe then it could become possible to find real beer at the local establishments, party stores, beer tents, weddings and graduation parties.
I do agree that Millers' "Champane of bottled beers" is quite drinkable,yet the rest of their near beer can join Buds' Brands in the dumper.
Yes, the ads are terrible. Yes, they will never inspire anyone to change their beer brand preferences (they're actually aimed at 15-20 year olds who are currently forming their beer brand preferences, but that's another story). But, in America, if you make a sufficiently wretched product, it doesn't matter how annoying and nonsensical your advertizing is, Americans will buy it in droves: Bud, Miller, McDonald's, Burger King, Nike, Wonder Bread, Twinkies, anything made by Kraft, Windows 98 Second Edition; the key is that the product itself has to suck. I'm sure there's other examples.