{"id":2856,"date":"2015-09-08T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=2856"},"modified":"2015-09-05T18:25:59","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T23:25:59","slug":"i-wear-two-hats-the-one-is-business-and-increasing-my-shareholders-value-the-other-is-social-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=2856","title":{"rendered":"I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders’ value; the other is social responsibility."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bud<\/a>Humor has been, and remains, a key part of above-the-line advertising for beer.\u00a0 In the 1950s, many beer commercials used cartoon characters for humor.\u00a0 Later, Miller Lite successfully used the now famous \u201cGreat Taste, Less Filling\u201d tag line with former professional athletes.\u00a0 And, for a while, Lite was the largest selling\u00a0light beer in the world.<\/p>\n

AB soon jumped on the humor bandwagon and scored big wins with ads\u00a0using wit.\u00a0 The Budweiser frogs, of course, being a predominate campaign that comes to mind. Soon, a fire storm of sorts occurred because of these ads.\u00a0 AB was accused of targeting under aged young people using the Spuds McKenzie commercials and the company soon dropped the campaign.<\/p>\n

At one time or another, most of the major brewers have used humor in their ad campaigns.\u00a0 Some were successful, some failed miserably.\u00a0 Think Old Milwaukee’s Swedish Bikini team or the infamous Miller Lite Dick commercials.<\/p>\n

This past summer saw changes made at the top of both MC and ABI.\u00a0 New leadership at these breweries, along with Heineken, resulted in the expected review of current ads and the agencies that created them.\u00a0 As usual, these new leaders changed agencies citing a new direction, notwithstanding the fact that some of these agencies had done some really good work.\u00a0 Michelob Ultra and Coors are two who benefited from their current theme.<\/p>\n

Industry publications and pundits have weighed in on these changes.\u00a0 Either way, results for Bud Light have been trending downwards for a number of years.\u00a0 We have all seen the sales losses and the negative trends for Bud Light continue, while the theme for Bud Light persists in using humor as a basis.<\/p>\n

Given the current impact from social media in today\u2019s society, the question should be: Does the beer industry have a social responsibility in marketing their products?<\/p>\n

The obvious answer is yes, but are we doing so?\u00a0 There have been a number of college campuses reporting male students acting irresponsibly and their resulting actions being quickly posted on social media.\u00a0 Many of such actions are occurring at parties where alcohol is involved.<\/p>\n

Does sophomoric humor that targets LDA men partying like no tomorrow really put the industry in a good position?\u00a0 There are many brands that do use life styles effectively, including Michelob Ultra and their active sports, and Corona\u2019s beach-in-a-bottle theme.\u00a0 Both ad campaigns are tastefully done, using a slightly older demographic.\u00a0 A demographic they are targeting.<\/p>\n

The beer industry should step up and realize that all of us have a responsibility to our younger society.\u00a0 The industry has done an outstanding job in their stance against drinking and driving.\u00a0 All levels of the industry stand together on this point.\u00a0 Why does the industry not take a similar stance on their ads? With the creation of products such as hard root beer, ginger ale, pop tarts, and colas there exists a real possibility that the industry is once again putting a target on its back.\u00a0 One tragic incident involving underage drinkers using one of these beverages might start another fire storm aimed at the beer industry.<\/p>\n

Young college men are not going to stop partying; however, having fun should be done in a responsible manner.\u00a0 The beer industry should step up and take their place as an industry that has a social consensus.<\/p>\n

The industry wears two hats:\u00a0 One is business and increasing shareholder value, the other is social responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humor has been, and remains, a key part of above-the-line advertising for beer.\u00a0 In the 1950s, many beer commercials used cartoon characters for humor.\u00a0 Later, Miller Lite successfully used the now famous \u201cGreat Taste, Less Filling\u201d tag line with former professional athletes.\u00a0 And, for a while, Lite was the largest selling\u00a0light beer in the world. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xRTi-K4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2856"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2868,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions\/2868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}