Or maybe it is. Either way, still-declining Miller Lite just named yet another new ad agency. 

So when will Miller Lite grow?

Over the past several months, the Miller Lite marketing brain trust claimed the brand was already being resuscitated by the clever re-labeling of its cans (and now bottles) to look like they did when Lite first launched. Sales improved a little, then slumped again.

So when will Miller Lite grow?

Now, the top marketing guy at MillerCoors wants folks to believe the brand is in vogue again because he "discovered that when we went back to our roots... (Lite) was embraced by young and old." Embraced? Wow.

So when will Miller Lite grow?

Same marketing guy says Miller Lite has "come back to talking about the beer." Really? Think real hard: Can you name something-- anything-- Miller Lite has said about the beer recently. Don't feel bad, I can't either.

So when will Miller Lite grow?

When MillerCoors relocated its headquarters to Chicago some years back, the company made a big deal about how beer was a middle-America beverage. Now, where's their new agency? Los Angeles. Because according to the marketing guy, L.A. is "the intersection of all great things: creativity, design, technology, entertainment, music...." All great things?!? He sounds a little starstruck. But there's something of a tradition of midwesterners arriving in L.A. with lots of money, and leaving with not very much. Some years back, another beer-marketing biggie fell for the "L.A. hipness" nonsense, and very nearly sank Coors Light with vapid advertising, starlets, and trendy music. 

So when will Miller Lite grow?

The answer to that repetitive question lies not in white cans, Los Angeles, retro-hipness, or even "talking about the beer." The answer lies in saying something about Miller Lite that is factual, and at the same time persuasive to enough beer drinkers to cause them to try the brand, come back to the brand, or choose the brand more often. This is what sound marketing strategy does. 

And it can't be delegated.

It falls to the marketing leader not just to deliver a get-us-a-strategy speech to his minions, but to personally lead the brand and define that strategic answer. Any fool can say "make this brand grow," but a true marketing leader will frame the issue, fully engage in the deliberative process to sort options, and finally, champion a compelling strategy to deliver that increased volume. 

Alas, it's always been so much easier to name a new agency. Again. 

And that really is a joke.

Here are four distinctly successful, growing Big Beer brands, in itself a remarkable statement these days...

Each one has, as a key aspect of its brand story, an identification with one or more real, living human beings. And here they are...

So, here's a quiz: Does having a real guy so strongly identified with a beer brand amount to...

a. A competitive advantage 

b. One secret to success in selling beer

c. A difference beer drinkers appreciate

d. All of the above

I'd go with "d." 

And apparently I'm not the only one. 

Congratulations outgoing president, Jake Leinenkugel.

Congratulations incoming president, Dick Leinenkugel.

Congratulations... Leinenkugel's!