In an interesting post-election interview on the "Morning Joe" MSNBC television program, Michael Moore was complimented as one of a very few political pundits to call the election for Donald Trump. And he did it five months in advance.
No Trump supporter, Moore suggested he became even more certain of his prediction when, a few weeks ahead of election day, political guests on the same television program mocked a Trump campaign news item. It was a press release saying the top election-related expense item of the Trump campaign for that month was ball caps.
(Click here for the full interview; ball cap bit at 3:51.)
While the pundits around the "Morning Joe" desk all giggled back then, Moore said he thought: "There it is. That's the bubble."
He went on, "They don't understand." Donning his own trademark cap, he added, "This is where I'm from. We wear ball caps because, to borrow a phrase from Bob Dylan, 'the country I come from is called the Midwest.'"
If the smartest of political pundits can fail so miserably to understand the heart of the country in a presidential election year, odds are beer marketers are no different.
Think beer marketers understand the heart of the country?
The failed Bud Light campaign suggests otherwise.
Were the issues offered in that advertising--like pay equity for women or trans-gender rights--of primary concern to the majority of middle American beer drinkers? Or were they more likely to be embraced and pushed by a much smaller group, not unlike those political pundits? And did the ad makers really think highly of those beer drinkers, or rather look down on them as rubes?
No Trump supporter, Moore suggested he became even more certain of his prediction when, a few weeks ahead of election day, political guests on the same television program mocked a Trump campaign news item. It was a press release saying the top election-related expense item of the Trump campaign for that month was ball caps.
(Click here for the full interview; ball cap bit at 3:51.)
While the pundits around the "Morning Joe" desk all giggled back then, Moore said he thought: "There it is. That's the bubble."
He went on, "They don't understand." Donning his own trademark cap, he added, "This is where I'm from. We wear ball caps because, to borrow a phrase from Bob Dylan, 'the country I come from is called the Midwest.'"
If the smartest of political pundits can fail so miserably to understand the heart of the country in a presidential election year, odds are beer marketers are no different.
Think beer marketers understand the heart of the country?
The failed Bud Light campaign suggests otherwise.
Were the issues offered in that advertising--like pay equity for women or trans-gender rights--of primary concern to the majority of middle American beer drinkers? Or were they more likely to be embraced and pushed by a much smaller group, not unlike those political pundits? And did the ad makers really think highly of those beer drinkers, or rather look down on them as rubes?
Who would ever think this advertising would sell beer in middle America?
Was Amy Schumer--whose online videos and stage appearances are exclusively off-color and extremely explicit attempts at comedy--the sort of spokesperson who'd appeal to the ball-cap wearing young male beer drinkers in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Wisconsin? The guys who drink a ton of Bud Light. Or was she more likely to repulse them?
Did the people who created and approved this failed campaign live in a bubble of their own? Were they "coastal people" who not only don't understand the middle of the country, they don't care that they don't understand? Did they see the beer's target market as it is, or believe they just knew best where America was heading? Did they force-fit their personal prejudices in their ads?
Lest we be seen as picking on Bud Light, here's our recent take on some Coors Light "branded content" that's just as culturally tone-deaf.
A feel for the center of the country
There was a time when all the major breweries employed ad agencies with midwestern homes. St. Louis and Chicago, primarily. Midwestern people brewed the beer; midwestern advertising people sold it. Beer marketers believed the ad agencies on either coast were a bit too insular, too insensitive to the rest of the country.
These days by comparison, BigBeer's advertising is created mostly by east and west coast ad agencies. By men and women who claim to have a feel for popular culture, but it seems, have little regard for midwestern values, interests, ethics and belief systems. And why bother with the midwest anyway since, as one self-important BigBeer marketer announced awhile back: Los Angeles is "... at the intersection of all great things: creativity, design, technology, entertainment, music..."
But when was the last time you saw a ball cap in a beer ad?
These days, it's very hip for ad agencies to spout off about their "insights."
Okay, here's an insight for those self-important LA ad guys...
If some of your brand's most loyal drinkers wear necklaces made of empty cans, and hats made of empty cases, you might want to find ways to embrace them, rather than ignore and ridicule them and their interests.
Truth is, they're way more important than you are.
Did the people who created and approved this failed campaign live in a bubble of their own? Were they "coastal people" who not only don't understand the middle of the country, they don't care that they don't understand? Did they see the beer's target market as it is, or believe they just knew best where America was heading? Did they force-fit their personal prejudices in their ads?
Lest we be seen as picking on Bud Light, here's our recent take on some Coors Light "branded content" that's just as culturally tone-deaf.
A feel for the center of the country
There was a time when all the major breweries employed ad agencies with midwestern homes. St. Louis and Chicago, primarily. Midwestern people brewed the beer; midwestern advertising people sold it. Beer marketers believed the ad agencies on either coast were a bit too insular, too insensitive to the rest of the country.
These days by comparison, BigBeer's advertising is created mostly by east and west coast ad agencies. By men and women who claim to have a feel for popular culture, but it seems, have little regard for midwestern values, interests, ethics and belief systems. And why bother with the midwest anyway since, as one self-important BigBeer marketer announced awhile back: Los Angeles is "... at the intersection of all great things: creativity, design, technology, entertainment, music..."
But when was the last time you saw a ball cap in a beer ad?
These days, it's very hip for ad agencies to spout off about their "insights."
Okay, here's an insight for those self-important LA ad guys...
If some of your brand's most loyal drinkers wear necklaces made of empty cans, and hats made of empty cases, you might want to find ways to embrace them, rather than ignore and ridicule them and their interests.
Truth is, they're way more important than you are.
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