Mike’s Hard Lemonade Ads
Whenever I watch commercials I always try to imagine the group of people who decided to sign off on this commercial. At some point this group received feedback from either their customers, their superiors, or purely through divine intervention. The feedback told them exactly how their customers felt or what they were saying about their particular brand. Let's take Mike's Hard Lemonade for example. For those of you unfamiliar to MHL I suggest you run down to the nearest market and buy a 6 pack and take a swig of this lemony, sugary malt beverage. It's not half bad!
Back in 2001 USA Today took a poll on what people thought of several ad campaigns
(MHL included). Mike's Hard Lemonade took a BRUTAL BEATING back then. Here is the article. where the brand is just taken to the gutter.
Here is one of the ad spots from that particular campaign: guy loses leg and then gets over it because buddy offers to buy a Mike's. There were those online who disagreed with the public and thought it was great: Drew Babb & Associates top 100. You have to love how the honesty of the masses compares very much so to the image of a smaller devilish version of yourself whispering into your left ear all the while an angelic counterpart, standing near your right ear, heartily disagrees with everything you heard earlier. Love it or hate it, these commercials are here to get you off the fence and start talking about them.
In 2002 they had a guy in front of a computer with a second head growing out of his shoulders. I'll track down the commercial later. Sorry everyone.
Fast forward to today and Mike's Hard lemonade has come up with their best ad campaign yet. Basic premise: large man whose ideas get turned down ALL THE TIME. Commercial. There's just something about a very happy and clueless, large man who pitches his ideas with conviction. Unfortunately every pitch he throws is a slow ball over the plate ready to get smacked like some sort tee ball practice for any Major Leaguer. His ideas just get slammed... and I love it more and more.
I still have a hard time figuring out what these commercials are trying to say about their customers. I must already be buzzing off a pack of these things so perhaps the message was just meant to get lost in the buzz.
Jeff and Mario on Shrooms (not the kind you’re thinking of!)
More and more I am becoming convinced that video games have become a cornerstone of not just 'at home entertainment' but as a cornerstone of entertainment. I am not a gamer myself so please don't send me messages of being a gamer homer. I remember as a kid that video games were something I played after school and before I got out to play basketball before dinner. It was a short and sweet session of punching through blocks with Mario or Luigi. I was on shrooms' back then: the ones that make you grow larger and allow your opponent to hit you just one more time before suffering a Goomba induced fatal would.
My buddy James directed me to this article on CNET showing GTA IV's first week performance. $310M ONE DAY OPENING. $500M IN ITS FIRST WEEK. Is that not just ridiculous? I had a blog earlier on Iron Man's stellar first weekend opening of ($100M). We are talking about 3x that in just one day for a gaming title. I will point out however that for every behemoth title or franchise like GTA, Halo, and Mario there will be a host of other titles that are your equivalent of Bennifer's disastrous Gigli. It just boggles me.
GTA's FIRST week of sales would rank it's publisher Take-Two Games and its developer Rockstar Games (if they combined to become a 'country') to be 176th in GDP! They would have a higher combined gross domestic product than the following countries:
- East Timor ($472M)
- Comoros ($436M)
- Vanuatu ($421M)
- Samoa ($387M)
- The Gambia ($379M)
- Solomon Islands ($358M)
- Guinea-Bissau ($343M)
- American Samoa ($334M)
- Dominica ($268M)
- Federated States of Micronesia ($232M)
- Tonga ($219M)
- Cook Islands ($183M)
- Palau ($145M)
- Marshall Islands ($144M)
- São Tomé and PrÃncipe ($142M)
- Anguilla ($109M)
- Kiribati ($73M)
- Tuvalu ($15M)
- Niue ($10M)
That's just ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as Gigli.
Selling Sex over Green and Vanity over Ethics
In Fast Company's June article on American Apparel titled sex vs ethics Rob Walker, the writer, talks about American Apparel's public facing transition from an ethics touting (a la sweatshop free clothing) to their newfound image of sexual overtones (see ad samples below). The article doesn't claim that AA has lost its sense of ethics or has forgotten its roots in best labor practices, it simply points out that using ethics as a selling point can only go so far: a niche. AA is growing, and part of that growth is thanks to their new broad base of customers. American Apparel sells clothing without a logo. Their clothes are not about projecting iconic or symbolic coolness onto you. The clothes are meant to complement the vanity already inside you. Ethics sells, but it isn't going to expand the bottom line like he diameter of a star going supernova on you. In fact, the article quotes:
"...according to the Journal of Industrial Ecology only 10% to 12% 'actually go out of their way to purchase environmentally sound products' "
That's nuts. If you were to walk down the street and stop 10 people and pop the question, 'do you care about ethics or the environment?', 'is sweatshop free or environment important to you?', 'would you buy sweatshop free or green oriented products?', I can BET that the majority of those you polled would say YES with a capital Y-E-S. Yet... our actions and behavior say something different.
That got me thinking about several product/service movements including but not limited to green, ethics, and good old made in the USA. I am planning on going to b-school and I was thinking about exploring the opportunities within green product lines. But is that enough of a sell? Can we do what sex did for the smoking industry in their heyday? I mean is it enough to stand on a soapbox and say 'hey buy this because it's biodegradable or zero emission or sweatshop free or made in the US?' Sadly I don't think it's enough. It's one selling factor.
Consumers are complex algorithms. Too many functions besides just green-zero emitting-ethical-Yankee fervor. There's PRICE, CONVENIENCE, UTILITY, QUALITY, and the bazillion other quirks that trigger the 'purchasing yes' button.
I think what we'll see going forward is that companies will creatively market their products with other marketing overtones as their primary message (much like American Apparel is doing now) and using the 'green-zero emitting-ethical-Yankee' concept as a secondary (much like you'll see American Apparel saying 'sweatshop' free in size 4 super-undersized font on their ads. Something is better than nothing right?
Other Movements or Companies I support
Product Red - AIDS focused product and awareness campaign
Method Home - environmentally sound cleaning products
Organic Foods - I'll admit I'm a hypocrite when it comes here... I'll still eat a fast food burger. Sorry.
French Ad
Meet Sophie Ad
