One of the ways American megabrewers distract you from the fact that their beers have no taste is by aggressive, expensive, often imaginative, advertising. The Super Bowl has become as known for its commercials as for the game itself, if not more, and it is no accident that the vast majority of ads for the Super Bowl are for watery American pilsners.
Of course, beer’s core demographic is males aged 18 21 to 49. That’s why so many of the commercials for sporting events are for beer. It’s also why so many of the commercials feature scantily-clad women. If you want to appeal to “regular guys” your ticket is sports and girls.
I will leave aside the sexist and exploitative aspects of this practice. This is, after all, a blog about beer, and we try to keep other “real life” concerns, while certainly important, to other fora.
In any event, as a member of the megabrewers’ target demographic, I used to enjoy their commercials—certainly much more than their products—but now generally find them a little too stale and peurile. I guess I’m aging out of their target. Of course, as a red-blooded, straight, American male, I do like the female form. And boy, are there a lot of hot bods pitching beer.
One such place to find examples of this is at Barbax Beer Babes. This blog offers many pictures of scantily-clad spokesmodels for beer and other alcoholic products. Some pictures are from ads themselves, but many are personally taken photos from sporting events, conventions, parties, and the like. If hot women and beer are inextricably linked in your mind, then this site is for you. They are even looking for girls women to send in pictures of themselves and be featured on the site.
You’re absolutely right about the marketing tactics of major the major domestics, but why couldn’t a more flavorful beer use similar tactics to sell their product? Using sports and girls might be the route a regional brewery would need to crack the national market. Having said that, I agree that this kind of advertising is exploitative. As much as I love to look at beautiful women, I can’t support sexist media.
Do we really want to see craft brewers using the same tactics that mega-breweries do? I don’t. I always thought the craft brewing movement was more about appreciating taste over image, with an implication that the brewers were above the obvious ploys of connecting sex and beer.