One of my favorite TV shows of this century is "Mad Men".
"Mad Men" was about a Madison Avenue advertising agency and its creative director, Don Draper. Don Draper was a genius because he could come up with a catchphrase ("It's toasted") out of thin air and bed every woman in the Tri-State area because he was, as the girls at Wheeler High School would have said in the mid-'70s, a "hunk."
Don worked at Sterling-Cooper. Roger Sterling was the son of one of the founders, whose primary job was drinking and smoking. Bert Cooper was the original living partner, and his job was to walk around in his socks and quote Ayn Rand.
A subplot during the show was the CEO of McCann-Erickson (an actual ad agency) was always trying to hire Don because Don was such a great, brilliant talent that was a hunk. Finally, during the final season of "Mad Men," McCann-Erickson managed to corral Don but they had to buy Sterling-Cooper to do it. (Actually, they had to buy the agency Sterling-Cooper morphed into: Sterling, Cooper, Nixon, and Agnew.)
One day, Miller Beer came in to give McCann-Erickson a look at their new product: Diet Beer. Don got up and walked out of the meeting. Really. He hopped in his car and drove all the way to California, where he came up with the prize-winning Coca-Cola ad: "It is time to make the donuts." "I Like To Teach The World To Sing."
(If you were around at that time, you remember the commercial. It showed a bunch of diverse people in the sense that they were all young. The idea is that if they could teach the world to sing, the world might buy a Coke.)
Here's what Don missed when he left the meeting: he missed Miller Beer's profile of their potential customer. The customer was a fat Mid-Western man who drinks beer but doesn't want to gain weight. Beer has been known to do that.
There was nothing about Miller's Diet Beer lifting the Cro-Magnum Man out of his primordial soup and dragging him into the 20th century.
That beer, Miller Lite, had classic commercials in the '70s and '80s using the tagline: "Taste Great, Less Filling." Miller made a bundle off their Diet Beer, so much so that the King of Beers, Budweiser, devised their Diet Beer: Bud Light.
Maybe you have heard of it.
Bud Light's sales have been flat, which is never a good term to use regarding beer. So Anheuser Busch did what major corporations do on occasion-hand the problem off to a graduate of a Ho-Dee-Do Ivy League School, which was their first mistake.
Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light's Vice President of marketing, focused like a laser beam on the brand's problem: their existing customers.
Ms. Heinerscheid said, "I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light."
So far, so good. The head of marketing is supposed to grow the brand.
Then, like many intelligent people, she didn't know when to shut up. Instead, she said she had a "super clear" mandate "to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand." She aimed to do this by "inclusivity, it means shifting the tone, it means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive, and feels lighter and brighter and different, and appeals to women and to men."
She finished with this: "We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out of touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach."
Her big idea: hire a Tik-Tok (it's all the rage) influencer named Dylan Mulvaney, who may/may not be a man who identifies as a woman. I can't tell if he's serious or if this is some sort of performance art.
They put Mulvaney's face on Bud Light cans. That was Heinerscheid's big idea to elevate the iconic brand. Exactly how this was going to happen is anybody's guess.
The only thing that did happen was to generate publicity for Bud Light, but not in a good way. It looked like just another corporation caving into the woke crowd that gets everything it wants without any type of discussion. First, they came after our children, and now they want our beer.
Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth issued a statement that was the word salad we all expect from a modern-day CEO.
He said, "As CEO of Anheuser-Busch, I am focused on building and protecting our remarkable history and heritage. I care deeply about this country, this company, our brands and our partners."
Mr. Whitworth continues: "I am responsible for ensuring every consumer feels proud of the beer we brew. Moving forward, I will continue to work tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers across our nation."
Whitworth said the company and the Clydesdales never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.
In other words: Blah, blah, blah. Beer. 'Merica. Beer.
Don Draper encountered some moments when he had helped a product like Heinz Baked Beans draw in a younger crowd. Heinz's idea? Get The Rolling Stones to sing "Time Is On My Side," except use the words "Heinz" for "time".
It is an age-old dilemma: getting young people interested in something that old people do. It happens in politics, music, and even religion.
The way NOT TO DO IT is the way Bud Light did it. I don't think Draper would have done it this way.
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