ABC: Miller Lite eHarmony
Posted: November 2nd, 2009 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 69 Comments »
So, we might start a new blog feature that we will call “ABC” — which (of course) stands for: “Analyzing Beer Commercials.” I, like many Americans, find beer commercials to be endlessly fascinating. Some make me laugh, some make me groan, some make me wonder what exactly we have become as a society. You could change those qualifiers to “A couple, many and most,” in that order.
All, though, make me think about the process of selling beer. How do you sell these different beers to people, especially because there really isn’t a gulf of quality difference between them? Most people I know have their own preference when it comes to American mainstream beers, but it’s the Coke-Pepsi preference … they’ll probably drink whatever happens to be on tap or whatever happens to be in the cooler or whatever happens to be in your fridge.
So how do you sell people that Miller is far superior to Bud, or that Coors is much better than Keystone, or that Busch is as smooth as its name, which isn’t especially smooth, or that Schlitz is still in business? It’s a fascinating concept, one worthy of a book. I’m sure there is such a book out there.
Anyway, here we go: Our first ABC is the Miller Lite eHarmony Commercial.
Type of beer commercial: Comedy.
Beer rating: MI (Moderately Insulting: stupidity, some scenes include sexism).
The set up: You have everyman and attractive woman and they are hugging in front of a white background then dancing then hugging some more — this is meant to look like the eHarmony commercial for Internet dating.
The plot: The man in the commercial talks about how he has discriminating tastes, and how he has found ones in the past he liked but none that he really loved. This apparently is supposed to make the viewer think he is talking about the attractive woman next to him. “Until now?” she asks hopefully. “Until now,” he confirms.
The twist: He is not actually talking about the attractive woman next to him at all! He is talking about Miller Lite! He pulls out the Miller Lite bottle and shows it to the camera. This is his love.
The result: Once the attractive woman realizes that he is saying that he does not love her but, instead, loves Miller Lite beer — which apparently he only recently discovered — she walks off screen in a disgusted fashion. He seems relatively unperturbed by this, though he does hold up his fingers in the universal symbol for phone and mimes “Call me.” We are left with the impression that she probably will not call him, but this does not seem too troubling for him.
The happy ending: Man has bottle of Miller Lite.
The acting: The woman who plays “attractive woman” does a credible job of convincing people that she has a hard time getting dates and was forced to turn to an eHarmony type service to meet people. I did find her portrayal as someone smitten with self-centered “everyman” to be somewhat unconvincing, but for this I can blame the writers who did not give her character much depth. The man who plays “everyman” was excellent and entirely believable. If you ever saw this person in real life you would have to fight the urge to punch him in the face.
The takeaway: If you are the type of man who prefers low-calorie beer to attractive women, Miller Lite is a good choice for you.
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circle me bob uecker
Circle Me Bert!
it is time to start talking seriously about commercials. they have been punishingly grinding (or is it the other way around) throughout this World Series. the beer ones are often like an oasis. but even they get old.
Of course, this is just a prelude to your review of “Tailgate tested, tailgate approved” ads which aren’t played nearly straight enough, in my opinion. It’s not funny if we can see you laughing.
Enough low calorie beer and all women are attractive.
If that wasn’t the point of this commercial then, well, it should have been.
Circle Me The Great Taste That Always Fills You Up And Never Lets You Down!
I’m always amazed at how many commercials use the Self-Centered Jerk (SCJ) as a typical example of the company’s consumer.
A guy who is indifferent to his girlfriend and only cares about football? He drinks OUR beer!
A Guy who buys a phone plan for his family – not because he cares about them, but because he himself gets a better phone? He uses OUR service!
A guy who orders his wife to make him a frozen pizza while pretending it’s actually delivery and tells her to “make it snappy” while he and his buddies sit in lawn chairs in the yard? He eats OUR pizza!
It seems like these kind of SCJ’s would be the kind of people that would PREVENT you from using their products/services.
I doubt I’ll ever see a more bile-inducingly crappy beer ad than the old campaign for Alexander Keith’s up here in Canada.
They relied on the “comedy” formula that states: Scotsman + shouting = hilarious.
Here’s a hint, creative types…if you’re watching a Mike Myers movie and you think he’s doing a voice or character that you find brilliant*, by the time the movie ends, it will have been played out to death and everyone in the world will already be sick of it. The only people still doing the character will be the horribly-out-of-touch.
*assuming this ever happens, EVER, anymore
The actor who played the shouty Scotsman was busted for possession of child pornography and they discontinued the ad campaign, which posed a moral quandary for me. Until then, I’d never thought I’d debate whether the fact that someone looked at dirty pics of kids could actually be the thing I hated SECOND-most about them.
I would ask you to deconstruct the perplexing new LEVI’s Jeans campaign, but your head might explode.
We think along similar lines. I thought the takeaway was:
“I’m a jerk, and I drink Miller Lite!”
I think we need to start a separate topic called “AED” for analyzing erectile dysfunction. I have never seen so many 60 year old men sitting in bathtubs in the middle of nowhere in my entire life. Is that really who watches baseball these days?
CM [#7]: I completely agree. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an ad and wondered who the hell would buy a product based on the commercial, and have even shunned certain products based on particularly horrible ads.
It’s all done in a misguided attempt to be funny, but it sure seems like there are a lot of products for whom the target demographic is the terminally stupid.
I hope that the Keystone Light commercials that always played on the Royals Television Network (where have we been? Around the world and we’re going again. huh?) are next up in the ABC series.
I miss beer ad jingles. “From the land of sky blue water…” (Hamm’s?) “Stroh’s is brewed for flavor, fire brewed for flavor. You’ll love the fire-brewed flavor of Stroh’s.” “Smoother, cleaner, less filling, that’s clear, Blatz is Milwaukee’s finest beer.” I learned a bunch of these jingles as a kib by listening to baseball on the radio from Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland. (pretty much the only good thing about growing up in northern Indiana).
I’m always troubled by the ads that suggest that a person would do literally ANYTHING for a mass advertised beer. These things cost $4 for a 6-pack of cans, and I’m supposed to believe that people will lie, cheat, or steal to get some?
It’s Miller Lite, for Pete’s sake.
Naturally this beer talk led me to thinking about football. More specifically, KC Chiefs football. Which led me to their current and consistent nightmare, LeRoy (AKA Larry) Johnson. I began thinking about how close Leroy was to breaking the KC Chiefs all-time rushing yardage record and I stumbled upon this statistic.
Only the Texans and Patriots have an all-time leading rusher with fewer yardage than the Chiefs. What does this mean Joe?
@brian m
Agreed. I don’t consider myself a prude. Really. I swear constantly. I laugh at dead baby jokes. I am A-OK with almost all forms of porn. I have no religious affiliation whatsoever.
However…please…enough with the penis commercials during sporting events. I don’t have kids but if I did, I would be really upset if I had to explain erectile dysfunction to my 6-year-old son. Or, worse, to my 6-year-old daughter.
I get the point. When I can’t get it up anymore or when I start peeing myself in public, I’ll go see a doctor. In the meantime, please let me enjoy my sports without a bunch of old, self-important yuppies nattering about their malfunctioning junk.
* in the AFC
I wish they made an ED commercial that referred to “malfunctioning junk”.
And I really wish Redd Foxx were alive to star in that commercial as Fred Stanford, sitting in a rusted out bathtub.
My main takeaway from beer commercials (and truck commercials) is this: cheep beer = unique and important; women = generic and unimportant. Also, all women hate football, which is why being married to one is so terrible.
The NFL clearly hates women, and doesn’t want them to watch. I don’t know what else to conclude.
Exactly correct, Joe. Except that my urge involves several shots to the guy’s head with a crowbar.
Wait a minute. Just hold your horses there fellas. I believe that we are talking about “triple hops brewed” Miller Lite. I can’t tell you how many of my friends switched from what they usually drink to Miller Lite once they found that it was triple hops brewed.
Triple Hops Brewed, whatever the hell that means, makes all the difference in the world and it’s the only thing I drink now. It doesn’t bother me in the least that it tastes exactly the same as every other mass produced beer that I’ve ever had.
As far as hot women are concerned, I don’t know if I’ve given any the brush off because I can’t see them past the glorious Triple Hops Brewed Miller Lite that is constantly in my face.
(At least I think it’s Miller Lite, I haven’t really paid that close attention.
I look forward to Joe’s analysis of ennui as it applies to the special Guinness glass.
Although I don’t drink, I have thought about starting simply because I like the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials so much. They’re funny without pandering to the lowest common denominator. Very funny…
Instead of “triple hops brewed,” why not just say “It’s toasted.” It’s worked before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Strike
I typically use the Miller Lite in order to end up in bed with a beautiful woman.
Except by “a beautiful woman,” I mean “my pants around my ankles.” And by “bed,” I mean “a puddle of my own vomit.”
Malcolm Gladwell had a New Yorker article years ago (1999ish?) about the ad campaign for Dockers. One of his conclusions was that men won’t buy products from a character who seems or acts superior to them. Which is why ads are populated with self-centered jerks and incompetent fathers.
Saw several adults dressed as the Most Interesting Person in the World for Halloween. Sign of a good commercial. The quality of the beer probably relates the character of the star of the ad. No SCJs hawking Guiness, Heineken or Dos Equis.
No analysis needed, but you can certainly complain about FOX and TNT constantly advertising their new show for the late fall/winter.
Ditto on the Dos Equis commercials. “He once had an awkward moment….just to know how it feels.” Also, now that ESPN and one of these commercials has the “He lives vicariously through himself” line, who gets credit for the origination? Is it a third party?
Men refuse to go to the doctor. ED commercials remind men to go to their doctor because they’re too stubborn to admit that their junk is malfunctioning. “Oh, it’ll get better by the end of the week!”
In addition to the “women are generic” comment, don’t forget that there’s also a plentiful amount of beautiful women in the world hanging out with a plentiful amount of handsome men. By the way, I think it’s more of an issue that most sitcoms portray the husband as being the average overweight man whereas the wife is ridiculously attractive and should be out of his league. Oh, and there’s usually one smart child and one ditzy child.
considering how demeaning most commercials are to men (men and husbands are useless and lazy and cannot function without woman and/or wivies) outside of commercials on sports, the jerk boy commercials are a nice relief.
http://www.mensmovieguide.com/NewsArticles5.htm <— NYT article on the subject
Along the lines of the Most Interesting Man in the World commercials, the Budweiser “Real Men of Genius” ads are brilliant, though I think they’re only radio ads.
I think they wrote the female part incorrectly — instead of walking away, she should’ve just rolled her eyes at him and said “Typical.”
@14:
When a beer would taste good
Have a Hudepohl
14 K say
Have a Hudepohl
Cold and golden pleasure
Any time of day
Have a Hudepohl 14 K.
Still remembered from 40+ years ago.
True Story: As I was reading this very blog post on my blackberry, this exact commercial came on the big screen TV I was watching while enjoying some teriyaki for lunch. Of course, I immediately started watching it to determine whether I could agree with your assessment of their acting abilities or not, and I have to say, the chick was pretty awful. I’m not sure I can give her a passing grade for that one.
Worst ads on tv:
Vikings with british accents selling credit cards.
Not sure I get the connection.
The woman who plays “attractive woman” does a credible job of convincing people that she has a hard time getting dates and was forced to turn to an eHarmony type service to meet people.*
Let me put in a defence of online dating sites (and the beautiful women who use them). There was a time when it was embarrassing to use online personals, but no longer. I’ve been using them for years, and in all that time I probably went out with 2 girls who turned out to be a disappointment, looks-wise. All others were very attractive, and some smoking hot.
The fact is that online personals make it so much easier than trying to meet someone in a bar, etc. – if I see an attractive woman in a bar, all I know about her is that she’s attractive. Unlike an online personal, I don’t know anything about her interests or personality…*and* I don’t know the most important thing: whether she’s single and/or looking to meet someone.
I suspect it is for these reasons that even smoking hot women use online dating sites.
[*I realize that a point of Joe's post is that he's been happily married for long enough that he predates the internet dating era, so he can be forgive for not knowing these things...]
Joe’s right…can we really be expected to believe that this guy is just NOW discovering Miller Lite??
Don’t know about you, but I fell in love with Miller Lite when I was 21 years old.
Except by “21,” I mean “Fifteen-and-a-half.” And by “fell in love with,” I mean, “woke up with my pants around my ankles in a puddle of my own vomit after drinking.”
That commercial is easily one of my favorite new ones. I always find those online dating ads to be idiotic anyways, so seeing a great spoof like this is fantastic.
If we were all a bunch of geniuses, then advertising full of narcissism and rude behavior would just be annoying and/or funny, depending on personal taste.
However, there are a lot of folks out there with a monkey see, monkey do mentality, and seeing casual acts of personal cruelty forty or fifty times a day on television is really harmful to those folks.
Those commercials just make me all the happier that the beers I drink (when I have a choice, of course) don’t even advertise. If you have a choice between a Sierra Nevada and a Miller Lite, and you choose the Miller Lite… well, that’s just a beer fail. Circle me beer snob.
Along the same lines, could someone please explain the concept of Pepsi Max to me? A diet Pepsi for men? Were we not allowed to drink diet Pepsi before? I never got the memo on that one.
Joe,
Please analyze this beer commercial next. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRn09T_X8lA&feature=player_embedded
@ Largebill: It’s that and the GoDaddy commercials that make me wonder what it takes to make a commercial cross the line of decency.
Hmm, I wonder if anyone else has ever accidentally left a post under the name “Name (required).” Anyways, the previous post is mine if anyone was curious.
@Jim and Bryan –
My partner (female) and I (female) loathe the ED commercials.
Though they have gotten funnier since every time one starts, she says in a dead serious voice, “My penis is so flaccid.”
Try it sometime. Adds to the joy.
i’m surprised that no one has written to say, “oh no, i NEVER drink (bud light/ miller lite/coors light/pepsi/coke).
i ‘prefer’ bud light and pepsi, but am certainly among the group you mentioned what will drink whichever, when it comes down to it. however, i know a lot of people who prefer miller lite, and WON’T DRINK bud light, or prefer coke and WON’T DRINK pepsi, etc.
i think they’re nuts, but there seem to be a lot of them.
My Favorite Beer Commercial…
There is a couple laying in bed…
The woman says something like, “I love you, honey.”
The man says, “I love you, Michelob.”
The woman shrieks: “What did you call me?!”
The man is scared and quickly responds: “Theresa, I called you ‘Theresa’.”
The woman: “No you didn’t. You called me ‘Michelob’!”
With all do respect to Old Milwaukee commercials, it doesn’t get any better than that.
@#32
“Real Men of Genius” used to be “Real American Heroes.” I think they changed the slogan after 9/11. Personally, I liked it better the old way.
@#5 “Enough low calorie beer and all women are attractive.”
Reminds me of when my son came home from 4th or 5th grade all excited. He said that in DARE they had given them glasses (he called them “beer goggles”) that made it seem like you had drank several beers. They then gave you a basketball and none of the kids could dribble with the “beer goggles.” I asked, “Did it make the fat girls look pretty?” He said, “No.” I said, “Son, those were not real beer goggles.”
Needless to say, wife was not impressed.
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Beer commercials have always seemed to run the gamut between somewhat clever and awful.
And so, of course, once marketers realize people sort of enjoy their commercial, then it gets played out until it falls under the awful category.
My new favorite commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJE4oBNeNus&feature=related
If you ignore individual commercials and take them more thematically, the most ridiculous ones in my opinion are the Coors Light commercials. They’ve done a whole marketing campaign on the premise that somehow, their beer is COLDER than other beers, and the have the blue mountains on their can to prove it.
It may taste like crap, but at least it’s cold…
And how is drinking Coors Light like making love in a boat you ask? Because it’s f*cking close to water…
I prefer the good old days, a more innocent time when common sense ruled and the irreverence and immorality of today didn’t exist. In those days, the pro athletes themselves did their own beer and cigarette commercials. I remember Mickey Mantle’s pitch for Viceroy cigarettes, “Viceroy’s are richer tasting…smoother by far! From my very first puff – man it was Viceroys for me.”
It that doesn’t get a kid smoking, I don’t know what will.
If you’re intersted in what makes a great commercial jingle for beer or whatever, check out http://jynglz.blogspot.com/
Video blog series that explores the elements using classic TV & radio commercials to illustrate. Interesting and entertaining.
Coors and Fox both are the lowest common denominator and assume their audience is stupid. Watching that stupid cartoon robot and then watching Coors stupid canned football coach press conference commercials makes me feel like I am an idiot for watching the NFL on TV. At least I follow the AFC and mostly watch CBS.
@49 — now THAT was funny
“I had to explain erectile dysfunction to my 6-year-old son” – My son once asked me what ED was, I replied “Marriage.” The wife wasn’t too down with that answer…
Alternate takeaway: If you have trouble hooking up with an attractive woman, adopt the “sour grapes” attitude. IF by some miracle she showed up, you could be happy turning HER down in favor of the wonderful beer (which is, in fact, all you have, assuming you go out and buy some).
People who drink lite beer don’t actually like beer.
Think of how much better most beverages taste with extra water in them, right? If it has to be 33 degrees or less to drink it, you are really just trying to trick your tastebuds into letting that swill go down your throat.
Let the damned things do their job. Since this guy would have no problems finding this malt flavored seltzer at a bar, it’s kind of strange he would need to bother with the online dating route. Just one more pin Rodney…
Pepsi Max has more caffeine. That is manly, I think. Well, maybe.
Since Coors owns/makes Keystone, they’re probably not trying to sell people that Coors is the better product. That said, their commercials are dumb enough, maybe they are advertising against themselves now.
Joe, given your way with words, I’d love your review of the Bud Light Lime “in the can” ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZX9Rv_2_C0
Of course, feel free to delete this comment if you feel that it doesn’t match the family nature of this blog.
Maybe I’m too different from some men, but if Gladwell did find that people don’t buy products from commercials with “good, or superior” people, I’m not real people. I hate ads who’s pitchperson is annoying, stupid, rude, whatever. Why would I want to be like that person? It’s kind of a sad statement, really.
Though, I do get a kick out of the how stupid the prodcuts are in the tailgate approved ads. Not that I’d ever buy bad-water beer with no flavor.
Buh?
I love this commercial! When I saw it for the first time I thought it was another one of those lame eHarmony commercials, but then the guy pulled out the Miller at the end and I laughed my butt off haha. I’d date that guy just because he likes his Miller Lite
And to those that bash Miller, Bud, Coors, etc. These are what we refer to as “Marathon Beers”. You can drink 15 of them and still be at the party, whereas you drink 15, say, Stella Atrois’ and you’re getting carted home in a wheel barrel!
All commercials are awful. Thank god for the DVR. And if the DVR has caught up to the game, then it’s time to find a backup channel to flip to to avoid the damn commercials, which seem to be louder than ever.
The commercials used to be a bit louder than the program, but now they are way louder than the program. Which seems really stupid– you turn up the volume and leave me no choice but to reach for the remote, so while I’m at it and have the remote in hand, I’ll just hit fast-forward or jump to a new channel.
PS, Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. and their Lites are all pretty much the same beer: Weak American lagers. They’re okay if they’re ice cold and there’s no good beer around, but there is nothing to argue over except their labels, which is pointless, because the different labels are covering the same product.
PPS, the idea of Miller Lite being “triple hops brewed” is high comedy. Miller Lite is for people who don’t like the taste of beer, especially hops bitterness. If there were more than a trace of hop flavor in Miller Lite, the people who drink it wouldn’t drink it. And people who do like hops aren’t going to drink Miller Lite anyway.
I’m not sure who they are talking to when they make that claim, their customers who don’t like hops or their non-customers who won’t drink their beer and will be horribly disappointed if they try it because of that slogan. It’d be like Burger King claiming their Whoppers were “Vegan Grilled.”
As an “OLD FART” I’d like to state that the best beer commercials were made way back in the day (early 1960s? – when it was legal to do so) during a live commercial the announcer would actually crack open a frosty bottle of Iron City or Carling’s Black Label (or, insert your favorite local swill that was normally a major sponsor of a pro Sports team) and pour it into a cold glass/mug right there on camera. Sometimes the guy would even take a drink before the spot was ended. As a young fellow in a very dry, strong Presbyterian household, these commercials were nearly of a pornagraphic nature. Had it not been part of a Pirates broadcast and the announcer not been the incomparable Bob Prince, my mother would have probably turned the set off for the minute or so that the commercial aired!
Here’s another fact that may startle you younger folks or those of you not familiar with Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. They did NOT dispense ANY beer at home Pirates games in the late ’50s and 1960s at Forbes Field. Not until the Buccos moved to that horrible donut on the confluence of the Mon and Allegheny Rivers was beer sold at Pirate games. (There were lots of miniatures swept up into the trash at old Forbes but no beer cups per se!
Joe – you should check out “The Gruen Transfer” – Australian show hosted by a comedian with a panel of advertising execs who break down various styles of advertising – it’s funny but also informative and raises some (at times) confronting issues. Highly recommended!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/home.htm
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