“Don’t try to change someone’s worldview is the strategy smart marketers follow. Don’t try to prove your case and to insist that people change their biases. You don’t have enough time and you don’t have enough money. Instead, identify a population with a certain worldview (personal perspective), frame (position) your story in terms of that worldview and you win.” [ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS | pg. 33]
Given Seth’s wise advice, it appears the marketers at Miller Brewing Co. are going to lose.
In a move to increase market share for its inexpensively priced Milwaukee’s Best brand, Miller has decided to spend time and money on an advertising campaign designed to change the worldview of beer drinkers.
Cash-strapped college kids and cheap beer drinkers alike adoringly refer to Milwaukee’s Best as the “Beast.” Calling Milwaukee’s Best the “Beast” symbolizes the worldview of these beer drinkers. Yet according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal ...
“… one of (Miller’s) first priorities will be to rid Milwaukee’s Best of the “Beast” nickname, which it has had for decades. In the coming months, it will push Milwaukee's Best with a television and print advertising campaign. One print ad shows a woman in a cut-off T-shirt with a tattoo of a bass on her back. "The perfect Milwaukee's Best woman because she drinks beer and likes to fish," (Peter) Marino (Miller spokesman) explains. A spot for Milwaukee's Best Light will say, "Men should act like men, and light beer should taste like beer."
In LIARS, Seth mentions “… changing a worldview is fairly glamorous work, it doesn’t often lead to a lot of profit.” So it appears the marketers at Miller Brewing Co. want to live the glamorous marketing life, but they are setting themselves up to fail.
They’re going to fail because the “Beast” nickname is way too ingrained in beer drinker’s minds to try and change it now. And come to think of it … the only thing remarkable about Milwaukee’s Best is the “Beast” nickname. (Which by the way didn’t come from the Miller marketing department, it came from the folks who actually drink the beer.)
Instead of cranking out generic advertising sloth (see billboard above), Miller should embrace the beer drinker’s worldview of calling Milwaukee’s Best the “Beast” and make up great stories about it.
Because as Seth says in LIARS, “The organizations that succeed realize that offering a remarkable product with a great story is more important and more profitable than doing what everyone else is doing just a bit better.”
Reminds me of when Mickey D decided to "Grow up" and spent $850M on such things as those bizarro commercials showing Ronald golfing and gambling. Their target market was - well - me...and I threw a fit the first time I whipped thru the drive-thru to get the little square filet o'fish with the even smaller square of orange cheese...and was given an "adult, gourmet" version with a potato bun and lettuce. I got out of the my tiny "upscale" sportscar - stomped in (power suit, heels and all) and asked for the "real" one. In the meantime, their cash cow (ahem - in more ways than one) customers also HATED the new stuff.
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | May 23, 2005 at 12:09 PM
You mean the "Best" nickname, right?
Posted by: Nick | June 04, 2005 at 05:06 PM