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Tagline Bashing, Round Two

May 26, 2006 | Tate Linden
Quick, who uses the tagline "Men should act like men, and light beer should taste like beer?"

If you know the answer to that - then can you name the sub-brand?

Answer -
Milwaukee's Best Light. (I didn't know either answer, so if you did you can deservedly taunt me via comments.)

I've got some major problems with this one, and since this blog seems to be working more one-way than two-way lately you're not going to stop me from venting.

Here's why:
  • The tagline doesn't reference anything about the brand other than "light" - a market that is heavily saturated.
  • The tagline isn't symmetrical - e.g., there's a modifier in front of "beer" but not in front of "men." So it comes out as men=men and light beer = beer. Or A = A and B = C. It just doesn't add up to me.
  • There's the whole "it's okay to insult feminine men" thing going on here. Not going to go into this much, but the only upside that comes from this is attention from advocacy groups and potential mentions in the press. Sounds great until you're slapped with a lawsuit (frivolous or not.)
  • It is no different than all of the other "Real Men Drink (x)" campaigns - of which I found 17,400 mentions on google that didn't have the word "Milwaukee" in them. Add in Milwaukee and you get 17,700. I just don't see the value in owning 1/59th of a brand concept (or 300/17,700ths if you want to check the math yourself.)
  • Following on the item above, the tagline could refer to any non-watery light beer, which every single maker of light beer claims to be making. Since no one is claiming to have beer that tastes just like soda-water, the claim that your product doesn't taste weak makes you only as strong as everyone else saying that... which is everyone.
  • Even though the commercials using the tagline are funny, they don't connect solidly with the brand identity. When describing the commercials to friends do you think you'd say "and then a big can of Milwaukee's Best Light(tm) came crashing down on the wimpy guy..." Probably not. If you did discuss it you'd likely just say it was a big can of beer. Maybe you'd say light beer, but I doubt it.
My take - this is an okay advertisement/tagline for beer in general, and perhaps for light beer specifically, but anything more particular than that is completely ignored. Given that Milwaukee's Best Light probably doesn't want to send business to the other brewers I'd suggest a change is in order.

I've said it before, and I'll say it many times more... You hire copywriters, tagline creators, and advertisers to get your products sold, not to win awards for themselves. This tagline isn't going to sell product.

Can anyone think of a beer advertisement/tagline other than Miller's "Taste's Great/Less Filling" campaign that really worked and didn't help sell other brewers products? I'm sure there are plenty out there that have worked in different eras. (It'll be a project for another day.)

tate_one.jpg Tate Linden Principal Consultant Stokefire Consulting Group 703-778-9925

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Comments (6)
6 Comments
leen May 29, 2006 6:28 PM

Alright, this falls in the "bashing" category rather than "this tagline rocks" category, but Miller Lite's new campaign slogan "You poke it, you own it" far surpasses the Milwaukee’s Best slogan in terms of pure dumbness.

Tate Linden May 29, 2006 9:13 PM

Welcome 'leen! Haven't seen the tagline, but I agree. I can't say I agree with the trend nowadays to have a main tagline and then a trendy tagline to go along with it. Bud has been "The King of Beers" for ages, but often runs mini campaigns to take advantage of (or create) new trends. Can anyone say "Wassup?" without thinking of Bud? Sure, it recalled the brand, but didn't give you any reason to drink it. Miller Lite's new one probably won't replace "TGLF" in the long haul, but they'll try to get some miles off of the double entendre. Really, without context I've no clue what it means... Wassup with that?

realtorguy May 31, 2006 10:43 PM

If the original tag line was "Green should be Green and light beer shuold taste like light beer" ...would that be any worse?
[note I didn't use Blue or Red since that would now have political implications to the US market...though green, orange, and a few other colors have the same implications across the rest of the world as well].
Anyhow, I'm thinking the brewers were trying to target the male audience, though I'm not sure this was a good way to target.
As stated, the reverse of the tagline is offensive;

and anyhow, the tagline as it stands doesn't give me a reason to pick up this beer or any other.
You shuold think of having a archive of "bad taglines". It'd fill up quickly.

Tate Linden June 1, 2006 6:51 AM

Answer to your question - It fixes the balance issue but causes other problems. For instance, people don't want to drink light beer that tastes like light beer. Rather than making both sides of the equation equal, I'd suggest that making both sides UNequal would be a better fix. Perhaps "Men should act like real men" would work. But again this gets into cliche territory.
It still doesn't fix the fact that MWB isn't selling its own product with the tag. I'd dump the concept and find a more permanent solution.
I'll try to find a way to create an archive of the worst offenders. Might be fun and educational at the same time. If I can jump the technology hurdles I'll make it happen.

chardman June 3, 2006 4:04 AM

It's really annoying, all this macho marketing garbage.

First it was that damn Dodge Ram car ad ("Silly little fairey!") then the Burger King I want man food campaign.

What's going on here?

Is it because men and women are both moving away from traditional roles and towards a center, making stupid, reactionary men to feel the need to overcompensate?

Note that the man on the Burger King commercial has the groomed look of the stereotypical 'Metrosexual' (god how I hate that term!).

And lots of taglines are getting really, really sloppy and desperate sounding.

Tate Linden June 5, 2006 7:25 AM

I hadn't seen the Doge Ram ad before. I gotta agree with your agreement. It is a rare day that a somewhat normal male is seen on TV. (Though that might be because if anyone ever appeared normal he wouldn't be needing to buy anything to help him get to normalcy...)