We debated about Miller Lite’s “Man Law” commercials a while back. I think the general consensus in the end was that we didn’t see the misogyny some people were seeing, but… they were stupid. They made fun of their own desired customers. We didn’t get it.
We weren’t alone. Holly at Marketing To Women Online writes:
To be honest, I found some of the Man Law stuff funny. So apparently did others. But alas the true test of a campaign’s success is sales – and Miller Lite sales are down. (Bud Light and Coors Light sales are both up)
Lots of folks are spouting opinions – while I don’t agree with all of it, I did find this post from Joe Sixpack interesting. He brings up a good point – men don’t want to drink girlie beer. But do women want to drink manly beer? It’s an important point because women are drinking and buying a large portion of the light beer market.
So why my defection to Amstel Light? Did it have anything to do with the Man Law commercials?
I honestly don’t know. The message the commercial sends out is – Miller Lite is a beer for macho guys – football heroes, wrestlers, etc. I certainly didn’t see myself in the spots and certainly didn’t picture myself drinking Miller Lite.
Their website confirmed my suspicions with a tacky beer babe on the home page.
Amstel Light, on the other hand – has taken a more female friendly position in its marketing, stressing “Live tastefully”. While their website is bad in too many ways to go into, the imaging includes lots of women drinking the beer – women who look like me in places that look like places I like to go.
As always, I’m just quoting snippets. There’s more to the article, and lots of good links. And the funny thing is that most of the young (20′s) guys I know started drinking Amstel Light this year.
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