BrewChief.com : Chief Chat : Truth in Beervertising : By Chops

Chief Chat » Truth in Beervertising

Posted by Chops on Sat, July 28, 2012

Back in 2011, our friends over at the Breckenridge Brewery in Denver, CO started releasing a series of hysterical commercials that poke fun at the macro beer companies. The series is called "Truth in Beervertising" and the clips mock many of the insanely stupid gimmicks that the big beer companies utilize to peddle their products. Below are links to all of the current videos to date (I will add more as they become available):

» If you touch it and it's cold, then it's cold
» Sevendruple Hopped
» Gravity Activated Pouring
» Swirly
» The Least Interesting Man in the World
» Find Your Couch
» Fresh Mountain Water?
» Ultra Light Beer
» The Passionate Brewer
» Lime Flavored Beer
» The Classic Smelling Of The Hops

As funny as these ads are, they also go a long way in highlighting the disingenuous and blatantly manipulative nature of Big Beer. These companies actively prey on consumer ignorance. Triple hopped is a given. Cold is not a flavor. Container shape is irrelevant. Granted, this strategy is nothing new in the world of big business. Large companies are well known for saying and doing anything to get consumers to purchase their crappy products. After all, this is how they make their money. Great products sell themselves, but cheaply made crappy products need a soulless marketing division to push them on the masses.

I wrote a lot about this topic in my previous review of Budweiser, which warrants a reference:
http://www.brewchief.com/review.cfm?id=176

The point of this posting is not to bash the dismal quality of Big Beer. When beer companies need to utilize adjuncts like rice and corn to cut costs and increase production, saying their beer sucks is kind of redundant. The purpose here is to show consumers that there are more pertinent reasons to not give your hard earned money to these companies.

Member Comments (2)

Posted on 8/4/2012 at 5:31 PM EST by Brew's Your Daddy (loved)

I still remember seeing these commercials and laughing hysterically at each one of them. It all boils down to the fact that if you toss enough dollars into advertising (big beer), you can make even the most blatantly obvious fallacy in the beer world (the old "serve it ice cold so its more delicious and refreshing") seem not only needed, but necessary. I have discussed that one on numerous occasions. It usually ends with me saying "Call me a beer snob or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that the colder ANYTHING is, the less you actually taste it. It's science you jackwagon." Then there is possibly a table flipped over immediately after.

The only thing that gets me is that I can't figure out how these commercials haven't gone super viral. Big beer companies use "funny" commercials and they are everywhere. These ads should be placed after every big beer commercial on TV. I wonder what the big boys would do if that started happening. My guess is they would pull the old threat "We spend billions of dollars every year on advertising. Pull those ads that are making fun of us, or we will pull our ads and dollars". Because lets face it, that wouldn't be the first time the big beer companies have said "Do it how we want, or we will take our ball and go home".

Posted on 8/6/2012 at 3:13 PM EST by Chops (loved)

Sigh, isn't that the sad truth. It's absolutely infuriating that big beer companies can effectively control programming by dumping massive amounts of money into advertising. I mean really, what media company is going to turn down millions of ad dollars from Anheuser-Busch? And in turn, of course, do whatever the hell they say. This is one of the many things that need to change before the craft beer movement can fully realize its potential. All I have to say is... Brew Masters.