In the past month, two of the top-ten beer brands in the world fired their respective lead ad agency. Whatever else may have played a role in these decisions, it's a safe bet the two breweries are disappointed with their business trends. Both brands are flat to down. 

Parents and orphans

Success has many parents. When a brand's business is growing like crazy, the assigned ad agency readily accepts praise that its work is... working. On the client side, every member of the team also basks in the limelight, updating resumes to reflect the rosy business ("Assistant Brand Manager during the brand's dramatic growth") and making sure their LinkedIn self-accolades are focused on their own role, however inconsequentially small, in the success. 

But failure creates an orphan, and it's always the ad agency.
Neither Heineken nor Anheuser-Busch is blaming itself for their failed ad campaigns. Forget that the brewery people directed the agency, approved the strategy, chose the ad campaign from many alternatives presented, hailed the work, and giddily promoted it to distributors and trade press. When market results disappoint, it's the ad agency that pays the ultimate price. Long ago, responding to a certain young account executive lamenting the unfairness of all this, a wise agency chairman remarked on its inevitability. "'Twas ever thus," said he.

What's also inevitable for Bud Light and Heineken is a major change in advertising. The almost equally vapid "Open your world" and "Up for whatever" campaigns will be gone. What ought to replace them?

We are a broken record on this

Advertising serves one purpose: To communicate how your brand is distinctive and different from competition. If you choose the most powerful product-anchored difference, and successfully dramatize it, your audience will reward the brand with interest and purchase. They'll select your brand in place of others. Your business will grow.

This is where these two beer brands have failed... and in the exactly same way. Bud Light and Heineken both concentrated entirely on entertaining the audience with over-the-top action. Fantasy for Heineken; wild partying for Bud Light. Neither brand mentioned or implied, much less dramatized, any difference in the beer itself. This failing is all the more stunning in times when every brand in the fastest-growing segment of the business--craft beer--shares one thing in common: They are all built entirely on communicating differences in the beer. 

So, what are the two huge BigBeer brands to say about their beer? The answer is strategic. It's a choice to be made by the brand-marketing team. And it must have a basis in fact.    

Might Heineken cite "a taste of Amsterdam?" Or somehow find an intriguing product claim related to the medals displayed on its label? Or provocatively define "European pilsner?" 

Could Bud Light's "delicate malt sweetness" be the reason every party's a little sweeter? 

Or will they uncover and concentrate on some other difference?

The options are many if the brand-marketing folks care to dig deep enough, and apply their own creativity. Before they ever commission the making of ads, they need to tap into brand history, brewing process details, and ingredient sourcing. They need to seek out experts in these fields... who, after all, probably work in the same building. They need to distill, debate, and select the one difference they believe best distinguishes their brand.

And if these brand managers do this digging, conjuring, and strategy-crafting, think how much credit they can claim for the success.

Bud Light's announcement is one of those interesting moments in beer-ad agency hook-up history. This is the fourth ad agency for the brand in as many years, so hope springs eternal, as they say. The freshly appointed agency has a powerful "creative reputation" among the ad-agency community. On the strength and lure of that reputation, some very big clients have hired them. And while most big ad agencies count themselves lucky to land a single beer account, this is the third time these particular folks will have the opportunity to apply their advertising talents to a major beer brand. 

Let's see if we can figure out what all that experience has taught them about selling beer. The better to predict the difference they'll make on Bud Light.

The MGD experience

But boy, did this campaign get the accolades! Culminating late last year when Heineken received the Creative Marketer of the Year award from the ad industry's Cannes Lions jury.

In an epic bit of déjà vu, however, Heineken's stagnating sales did not respond to the work so assiduously celebrated as "creatively brilliant." As the fortunes of the green-bottled beer continued to languish, leadership changes were made at the client, and less than a month after the big Cannes announcement, Heineken sent its Lion-winner ad agency packing.

So, what should Bud Light expect?

Perhaps the third time will be the charm.

When an ad agency's entertainment-laden creative recommendations have twice resulted in millions of dollars--actually, hundreds of millions--expended behind campaigns that did nothing for sales, you'd think these bright folks would've learned a hard lesson. You'd think they'd put aside their self-serving quest for praise from their peers, and shoulder the difficult work of identifying the product aspect of Bud Light that makes it distinctive. You'd think before worrying about awards, they'd help identify Bud Light's uniqueness, and only then create avertising that makes this distinctiveness come to life in some fun, fresh, provocative fashion.   

No doubt, Bud Light will find in its new agency a team now firmly committed to making ads that communicate how the beer is unique. 

You'd think.