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The Voice of the UnderdogÂź
Chapter 1
I laughed out loud the first time I saw a Miller âMan Lawâ TV commercial. You know the ones featuring Burt Reynolds and the âMen of the Square Tableâ debating and then ruling on lofty issues such as leaving football games early to beat traffic, or whether or not the âhigh fiveâ is officially played out.
By just about anyoneâs standards, it was a very funny campaign. Itâs no surprise that the campaign produced by rock star ad agency Crispen, Porter & Bogusky proved wildly popular and won all kinds of advertising awards. Itâs even featured in Wikipedia, the web-based encyclopedia. As reported in Advertising Age, âthe spots drew laughs, hundreds of thousands of entries to an online âManlawpediaâ and pop-culture references.â
A Miller spokesperson said the campaign succeeded in generating âsocial currencyâ for the brand. I guess thatâs a tricked-up euphemism for talk value. Unfortunately for Miller, it means nothing without sales. And the trouble is the celebrated campaign didnât sell any beer. In fact, during the course of the campaign Miller Liteâs sales declined while competitors Bud Light and Coors Light saw their sales increase. Oops. Thatâs not good news for the Miller marketing team, and it doesnât say anything good for the agency behind the work.
Iâm sure CP&B will survive its latest brush with humility, but it begs the question: why didnât the campaign produce sales results? The answer is simple, and it illustrates an expensive lesson that marketers and ad agencies have been learning over and over again for decades now. The point of advertising is not to entertain. The point of spending millions of dollars on advertising is to sell something.
The âMan Lawâ campaign, while every bit as funny and entertaining as many Saturday Night Live bits, simply failed to tell people why they should drink Miller Lite.It looks like Millerâs CEO is done laughing. He said, âWe feel like itâs time to start putting some more focus back on the reasons why Miller Lite is simply a better beer than other competitive light beers.â Maybe CP&B will get back to the truly hard work of making effective advertising for Miller.
Keep the laughs but close the sale would be my advice if anyone is listening.
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