I Dislike Your Favorite Team

In his last post, Garwood mentioned some of the commercials on heavy rotation during NFL games, and how those commercials serve to keep him from ever buying their product.

I sympathized, both because of the commercials, and the series of ads I've seen while watching poker coverage on ESPN.

I'm all for the World Series of Poker (or WSOP, for us educated poker watchers. Yeah, I'm braggin' about that) having a major sponsor, and it makes a certain amount of sense for that sponsor to be a beer company. Absolutely. In the real life poker games played throughout the world, beer consumption plays a major part of who wins and who loses. The last time I played poker, and wasn't distracted by Guitar Hero, I targeted guys who were drunker than I was, and I walked out a couple hundred bucks richer. Every poker game in the nation is like that, so it makes perfect sense that a brand of beer should sponsor the WSOP.

But Milwaukee's Best Light? Really? The light version of the beer I decided was too crappy to drink when I was 19 years old? The light version nicknamed by high-schoolers nationwide as "The Beast" because of its shitty taste and nasty aftereffects on the digestive system? Really? Could they not get Natural Light to pony up the dough?

Not only is The Beast one of the worst beers distributed nationally (clearly, everyone has a favorite worst local beer--in Minnesota, I would argue for Cold Spring, with a special posthumous award to Pfeiffer; in DC, it was Red, White & Blue),* but Milwaukee's Best Light has the possibly the single most demeaning advertising theme I've seen of late. It's demeaning to women, it is insulting to men. It seems Beast Light has decided to focus on getting the biggest idiots in the country to buy their beer.

The Central Theme of the advertisements is that whenever a man engages in "unmanly" behavior, a giant can of Beast Light drops on him, presumably killing him instantly. (It is clear in the commercials, that Beast Light is only for men, and preferably working class/white trash men).

Examples of unmanly behavior include: (and I haven't made a single one of these up)
1. Checking with your wife before you go fishing with your buddies.
2. Being scared of heights/rooftops.
3. Fumbling the catch when a buddy throws you a beer.
4. Getting distracted by the Soap Opera the wife is watching.
5. Enjoying a trampoline. (seriously, that's one of them)
6. In this example, buying Wine Coolers.

Note: In these commercials, it is totally acceptable to be the slimy hick who says things like, "Your waf give you permisshun?" to your one married friend or "Ya'll have a good night." to random women who had the misfortune to shop at the same convience store that you hang out at.



Watch more of the suck here. I was in no danger of buying Beast Light, because it is a suck beer. But I wish I did like it, just so my threat to boycott it would mean something. I assume their marketing department has done its homework, and they know that the WSOP is being watched by a shitload of greasy, fat, insecure teenagers who are scared of the girls in their school, and of their own confusing feelings for the Captain of the football team. How else to explain these overtly, stupidly machismo-driven ads for such a shitty beer, shown during the most unathletic broadcast in the ESPN calendar?

*Red, White & Blue was actually a national brand. Oops.