@HeyBeerDan
  • WHO IS "HeyBeerDan?"
  • TITLE INDEX to all articles
  • CONTACT HeyBeerDan

Our "Best Beer Ad Campaign" award goes to....

12/31/2013

 
Picture
'Tis the season for year-end awards.

Before we send our inaugural (and not-yet-coveted) "Mug of Win" to the best beer ad campaign of the year, let's go back seven years and watch a beer commercial nobody would ever honor.

Young adult guys... getting ready to go out drinking... end up instead sitting on a couch watching porn. A commercial that nearly screams, or more accurately, yawns "ordinary." Worse, the only statements made about the advertiser's beer are one actor's, "Wow, that tastes great," and a final forgettable billboard: "Mighty tasty." The brand name of the beer being advertised is not even spoken once.

Sounds like a beer ad you might've seen before, right? But from which brand? Maybe Bud Light? Or Miller Lite? 

Take a look...
That ad was among a number of equally ordinary and deservedly forgettable commercials Boston Beer's Samuel Adams was running in 2005. In perhaps as pivotal a marketing decision as any ever made by brewer, Jim Koch, the campaign was dumped before year's end and replaced with "For the love of beer." 
A single advertising decision was made in favor of a strategy of full-flavor beer and what it takes to make it so: pride, craftsmanship, ingredients, caring, talented brewery people, and an involved owner. "Ordinary" was replaced by "special." In a gut call by the owner (we are told no big research effort was conducted to tell him what to do), he absolutely nailed job #1 of beer advertising: Cause the brand to be seen as special.

That good decision is only part of the rationale for awarding this campaign the "Mug of Win." The other is the arguably more difficult decision to stay with this strategic brilliance year in and year out. Once again, the owner made the right call. Seven years later, "For the Love of Beer" continues to deliver on its original strategy.
Beer marketers take special note: This advertising's not about entertaining people. There's no young-guy-relevant humor, no clever gimmicks, and certainly no porn references. 

In place of these way-too-common elements in ordinary beer advertising, all the "sex appeal" and magic is saved for the beer and how it's made. This Sam Adams campaign is all about conveying the facts supporting how special and different the beer is. And then there's that bit about having an owner who knows his beer, and his own mind. Talk about different from Big Beer!

Not to mention driving year-after-year of dramatic sales growth. 

That's a real "mug of win."

Cheers!
Picture

Comments are closed.

    Subscribe to New-article updates from HeyBeerDan

    * Note: Certain video links may not function in emailed articles.
    Picture

    The Author

    Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

    For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

    Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

    If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.