Episode 136 - Miller Lite Bad $#!T to Good $#!T Ad Reviewed by Hub Strategy and Communication
How can a traditionally macho beer brand connect with women? For Women’s History Month, Miller decided to… trash the industry, more or less!
Their “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T” ad is the topic of this week’s Advertisers Watching Ads and it’s fair to say, it hasn’t captured the hearts of our guests, Lucas Bergmans (former Group Marketing Director at Cazoo) and DJ O’Neil (CEO at Hub Strategy and Communication).
Watch the episode to find out why they scored it only 1.5 out of 5 and what they think beer brands can do to connect with female audiences. What did you think of the ad chosen by Contagious this week? Let us know in comments!
Episode 136 - Miller Lite Bad $#!T to Good $#!T Ad Reviewed by Hub Strategy and Communication
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands discuss other brands' ads.
Tom Ollerton 0:21
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative. And I would like to thank Contagious for being our partners and helping source the ad this week before we get to that ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Lucas Bergmans 0:34
Hi, I'm Lucas Bergmans. I've always been an advertiser, so client side marketing for my whole career. Split between food and drink brands like Heineken, Pepsi, Old El Paso, and digital brands in the UK like MoneySuperMarket, Aviva, and most recently Cazoo.
DJ O'Neil 0:51
Hi, I'm DJ O'Neil, founder and creative director of a company in San Francisco called Hub Strategy and Communication. We're a design and creative shop in San Francisco. I'm a creative director and director. We work with brands, all kinds of brands, from start-ups to big brands like Nike and Google. And Microsoft and Levi's and stuff like that.
Tom Ollerton 1:11
You have set a very high bar for this episode, but let's watch this week's ad.
Tom Ollerton 2:46
So let's give this ad a vote out of five. (Five, very awesome. One is not very awesome.) So on the count of three, hold up your fingers, one, two, three... A two and a one.
Lucas Bergmans 2:59
There's loads and loads of brands have tried to target women, whether they actually come up with a new brand or a new flavor of beer or the cartons, right? And so this is clearly, they've done this purely just on the comms front from what I can tell. The mistake that beer brands often make is that it's really yes, women like the taste of beer, but it's really the image of beer that's the problem. "And I don't want to be seen to be drinking certain beer brands." I think there is an element of truth to that. But actually, the kind of key insight around women's drinking behaviors from, from my kind of experience in Europe a while ago was really actually women are looking for an acceptable beer they can drink in mixed sex groups, right? So they're not looking for having their own distinctive brand that only talks to them. And the kind of the best example of that in the UK is Peroni. So they kind of specifically launched a brand that was targeted both at men and women. So trying to take an existing brand like Miller, that's got a real history of very, very blokey, very macho, very kind of male chauvinist advertising, probably the one, one of the worst examples of the bad shit that they're talking about and pivoting in that style. I get the intent. I get the shift they're trying to make. I just think that it's not likely to work with that audience. And actually, at the same time, given the kind of political atmosphere in the States it's more likely to have a backlash amongst their real kind of historical core which is what you've just seen with Bud Light. (I'm sure we're going to come into that,) but it feels like another instance where a brand is trying to do the right thing in slightly the wrong way that won't necessarily attract the people they want to try and attract, and that will really annoy the people that are kind of their historical core. So I think that's a kind of bit more of a strategic level. The problem that I have with it.
DJ O'Neil 4:36
First of all, the biggest thing is as marketers, we're supposed to be in touch with our audience and we're supposed to understand the current trends and things like that. I look at it like, Dove, the real women's campaign, real women campaign from years ago featuring not the supermodels in their ads. They featured real women, and the timing was fantastic. It was at a time when there was a lot of talk about body shaming, eating disorders caused by these brands portraying women as perfect all the time, right? And so Dove came in and said, "Fuck that." They hit a wave and they rode the wave and they did it with tons of integrity. They tapped into what was important to the audience. And here's the other part, they didn't make it a vain one-off, minute and a half commercial like this thing. They made it an artery in everything that they did, right? And so they went all in on it. And this is 15 years ago. Today, women are still buying Dove Men's product because of a halo created by this brand. They did such a masterful job. This falls apart on a bunch of levels. Number one, the wave right now maybe a year ago, the "woke" thing, maybe two years ago, the global pandemic in the US, the woke thing was going like this. It's gone downward like this in my opinion, right? It's now, people are fatigued from it. So to come out and take a, a swipe at your whole industry, saying the beer industry treated women like crap only to make yourself a hero, it doesn't make sense to me. The people that you're targeting and speaking to, are they going to change their drinking habits because of this ad? The risk reward thing doesn't... The math doesn't really work, you know? So I love brands go in to corporate social responsibility and I love the idea of celebrating women. I love this theme of like women were the original brewers, they're like, why not go positive for that? Right? You want to do this? Go all in. Make a big program.
Tom Ollerton 6:06
What were the immediate things to take out and change? How do you make it better?
Lucas Bergmans 6:10
If I was Miller, I'd come up with a new brand, if that's what you really want to do to target a different audience. Just come up with a new brand, like if it's the response is going to be acting like Bud Light, they're going to lose that much money, they might as well launch a new brand anyway. That's not particularly helpful for the agency in this instance. But strategically, it's, it's a bit off.
DJ O'Neil 6:26
I would actually probably put the most macho famous male figure as your spokesperson. If you're going to villainize the way the industry's worked, I like the idea of celebrating and not making the villainizing too bad and too smug about how you talk about it. You could probably have something that would be less off-putting to the target audience.
Tom Ollerton 6:43
Is there any argument that they want to move away from this certain type of Miller core audience and they want to make Miller relevant to a younger audience here? Who would be super hot on this issue. Who might actually think the bad shit, good shit joke's quite funny.
Lucas Bergmans 6:56
Yeah, possibly. And I think, kind of need to find the real, right way to kind of ride the next kind of wave and the next, next kind of relevant theme. But I do wonder whether the product just needs updating. If it's anything like the UK, the beer market has completely changed in the last 10-20 years. It's so fragmented, there's loads of actually really great tasting beers. And maybe, not to insult it, but a lot of American beers like Bud Light just taste awful. And you know, even brands like Heineken here are just by comparison to the stuff you can buy just come across as quite bland product. So I'd almost start with the product, see what else you can do with that as well as really thinking deeply about who's your next generation of drinkers in the next 10-20 years, men and women, and how do you make the brand relevant to them? I'll really probably think that through which is really hard, by the way. Really, really hard.
DJ O'Neil 7:51
I think this was just a knee jerk. "Hey, it's Women's History Month. Let's do something. Let's throw something out there." Go all in. You know what I mean? Change the packaging, maybe change the name, use the equity from the brand. I met this guy years ago, Ken Grossman, who's the founder of... Do you guys know Sierra Nevada Beer? Is that a...
Lucas Bergmans 8:05
Yeah.
DJ O'Neil 8:06
He told me a long time ago, said, "When someone holds a beer in their hands, it's a badge." And it's true. The drink or the beer is supposed to represent who you are. And brands are always trying to find that connection. So that when people are holding their beer, that badge is something that appeals most emotionally to the largest number of people. And you can see, you could see having that Miller Lite badge in the future if you wanted to go all in on women. You could see building a whole brand around celebrating women, right? And celebrating women, you know, women's causes and women's brewing and women brewers. You can see how it's kind of an interesting and intriguing idea. But it goes back to what Lucas said, maybe it's about creating a whole new brand. Miller creates new brands all the time.
Lucas Bergmans 8:44
Yeah. I'm sure I read that somewhere... They always do. Extensions, different brands, all that kind of stuff.
Tom Ollerton 8:49
Gents, vote with your thumb. Yes or no, would you sign off this ad in its current form? Miller. Some interesting feedback there and we'll see you all next week.
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