When it comes to insensitivity and bad taste, remember the days BigBeer was pretty much completely tone-deaf?
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Some years back (before Miller and Coors were joined), this Miller Lite commercial was justified with "It's targeted to young men who like this sort of thing." When the ad aired nationally, it caused an uproar among women's groups. They chastised the brewer and got it pulled.
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Bikini wrestling
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And then there was this Old Milwaukee gem, a classic in bad taste and insensitivity to women.
Along the way, there have been plenty of other lapses. But we're in the new millennium. BigBeer has certainly learned to show sensitivity to hot-button issues and social concerns, right? |
Even more bikinis!
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NSFW
These four letters are the accepted internet caution when content is potentially objectionable. In this case, forget "potentially." Here comes two minutes of urban event-marketing run amok. Sponsored and all logo-ed up, courtesy of Coors Light.
Brace yourself. (We're not kidding about the NSFW.)
These four letters are the accepted internet caution when content is potentially objectionable. In this case, forget "potentially." Here comes two minutes of urban event-marketing run amok. Sponsored and all logo-ed up, courtesy of Coors Light.
Brace yourself. (We're not kidding about the NSFW.)
---Editor's note---
The above-linked video of a Coors Light-sponsored Orlando event featuring the artist "2Chainz" and the unsavory language described later in this article has had its privacy setting changed.
An internet search for "2Chainz lyrics" will show similar language which we will not re-print here.
An internet search will also list the videos below, all of which have been deleted now, or converted to "private."
An internet search for "2Chainz lyrics" will show similar language which we will not re-print here.
An internet search will also list the videos below, all of which have been deleted now, or converted to "private."
Wiped clean: All these videos have been deleted from the internet.
We have chosen to leave the text of our article as originally written.
It continues below.
It continues below.
What were they thinking?
No doubt, the marketing brain trust's immediate backpedal would be a version of the bikini-wrestling defense. Something like: "This is targeted to urban African-Americans who are comfortable with this sort of language." Does MillerCoors really buy that?
To be sure, popular artistic expression embraces all sorts of off-color and oddball exhibitions. But hawking beer is not art, it's commerce. A beer brand choosing to align itself with decidedly racist characterizations, sexist rants, and foul language by way of a sponsorship is endorsing those social values, or lack thereof. How can it be interpreted otherwise?
The senior marketer who approved this "2 Chainz" (the artist formerly named "Tity Boi") branded event may have been persuaded it was "only event marketing," and confined to Orlando. If so, he's an idiot. In an age when anyone with a cell phone is a potential content-provider to network television, absolutely nothing is exempt from national exposure. What happens in Orlando won't stay in Orlando.
A brand chasing the marketing false god of hipness in the fashion Coors Light appears to be engaging in here, can easily forfeit equity it took decades to build. Gone in the time it takes for a click.
That's worse than idiotic, it's suicidal.
No doubt, the marketing brain trust's immediate backpedal would be a version of the bikini-wrestling defense. Something like: "This is targeted to urban African-Americans who are comfortable with this sort of language." Does MillerCoors really buy that?
To be sure, popular artistic expression embraces all sorts of off-color and oddball exhibitions. But hawking beer is not art, it's commerce. A beer brand choosing to align itself with decidedly racist characterizations, sexist rants, and foul language by way of a sponsorship is endorsing those social values, or lack thereof. How can it be interpreted otherwise?
The senior marketer who approved this "2 Chainz" (the artist formerly named "Tity Boi") branded event may have been persuaded it was "only event marketing," and confined to Orlando. If so, he's an idiot. In an age when anyone with a cell phone is a potential content-provider to network television, absolutely nothing is exempt from national exposure. What happens in Orlando won't stay in Orlando.
A brand chasing the marketing false god of hipness in the fashion Coors Light appears to be engaging in here, can easily forfeit equity it took decades to build. Gone in the time it takes for a click.
That's worse than idiotic, it's suicidal.
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