"Where it's from and why it's special" is a time-proven winning strategy for beer brands. Distinctiveness via place + product.
This simple formula's been key to any number of beer-brand successes through the years. From "real gusto" for the beer that made Milwaukee famous, to Leinenkugel's Chippewa Falls locale with its "water from the Big Eddy Spring," a brewery's home linked to its product distinctiveness has powered some amazing brands. And it's still going on. Many of today's most successful craft beers--including the largest of them, Boston's Samuel Adams--follow this path to stunning success.
Lost it
What about BigBeer? Unfortunately, their multiple mega-breweries-- scattered across the country to reduce shipping costs--conspire against employing the "place" half of the winning formula. When you're from everywhere, you're from nowhere. Anheuser-Busch hardly mentions St. Louis, and Miller's old Milwaukee home is, if anything, even more assiduously ignored. On the product side, BigBeer's attempts at selling distinctiveness have been hit-and-miss (hit: Bud's brewed the hard way; miss: Lite's frothy yellowness).
This simple formula's been key to any number of beer-brand successes through the years. From "real gusto" for the beer that made Milwaukee famous, to Leinenkugel's Chippewa Falls locale with its "water from the Big Eddy Spring," a brewery's home linked to its product distinctiveness has powered some amazing brands. And it's still going on. Many of today's most successful craft beers--including the largest of them, Boston's Samuel Adams--follow this path to stunning success.
Lost it
What about BigBeer? Unfortunately, their multiple mega-breweries-- scattered across the country to reduce shipping costs--conspire against employing the "place" half of the winning formula. When you're from everywhere, you're from nowhere. Anheuser-Busch hardly mentions St. Louis, and Miller's old Milwaukee home is, if anything, even more assiduously ignored. On the product side, BigBeer's attempts at selling distinctiveness have been hit-and-miss (hit: Bud's brewed the hard way; miss: Lite's frothy yellowness).
Alone among the largest brands, Coors Light was the exception. The "cold taste of the Rockies" was a real, if slightly hedged, point of geographic and product distinctiveness. The brand employed this strategic communications asset to good effect for many years, passing Miller Lite and Budweiser in the process. (Full disclosure: The author played a role in the creation of this strategy.) But if its latest national ad is any indication, the Silver Bullet has definitely lost its way.
This isn't advertising; it's little more than a 30-second music video.
This isn't advertising; it's little more than a 30-second music video.
There's nothing here to make you want a beer, much less a Coors Light. Maybe a Coke ("The drop that refreshes" being borderline plagiarism). Truly, any beer could run this ad just by substituting its label. And when any beer can run your ad, you've utterly failed as an advertiser. String together enough of these failures--and MillerCoors has seen way more than its share for some time--and heads should roll.
Found it
In the odd yin and yang of beer advertising, debuting at nearly the same moment comes a new campaign from Corona Light... "The light cerveza."
Found it
In the odd yin and yang of beer advertising, debuting at nearly the same moment comes a new campaign from Corona Light... "The light cerveza."
Here is advertising working hard to register distinctiveness by way of a clever product-claim structure. More and less: More taste. More of what matters. Less ordinary. 99 calories. And then: "Less light beer."
Odd as that last bit of wording is, in the context of this advertising, it works. Corona Light actually is less like other light beers. Who else has the lime shown so provocatively here, and the beachy Miami vibe? And what other light beer has Corona Light's place of origin? "Mexico" right on the label, and the repeated use of "cerveza," drive the point. Distinctiveness by way of place + product.
If history's any guide, one of these brands is going places.
While the other is running music videos.
Odd as that last bit of wording is, in the context of this advertising, it works. Corona Light actually is less like other light beers. Who else has the lime shown so provocatively here, and the beachy Miami vibe? And what other light beer has Corona Light's place of origin? "Mexico" right on the label, and the repeated use of "cerveza," drive the point. Distinctiveness by way of place + product.
If history's any guide, one of these brands is going places.
While the other is running music videos.
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