Stupid Marketing

[the_std]

I work in a place where there are TVs on all the time, and we have to leave it on a sports channel. Lucky for me, this means I see lots of beer ads! Yaaaay. And I've noticed a stupifying trend...

Promoting your beer with things that do absolutely nothing to improve the beverage. I have two examples that spring to mind right now...

Number one is the Coors Light cans that change colour to tell you how cold they are! Now, I understand that warm beer is like drinking the devil's urine most of the time, however, I thought it was common knowledge that cold beer is better. You stick the beer in the fridge and you drink it when it's cold enough. The cans aren't even measuring the coldness of the beer, they're measuring the coldness of the can, which isn't always the same as the temperature of the contents!

I remember the giant ad campaign touting this as a change that would shake the beer market to its very foundations. I also remember softly banging my head against my desk with the realization that this marketing must have been effective, as they wouldn't have continued with it otherwise. Augh.

But the stupidest, at least to my mind, is the Molson Canadian wide-mouth bottle with screw cap. First of all, I was under the assumption that screw caps on beer bottles don't keep the carbonation at ideal levels, which is why beer manufacturers have use the cap method for so long. It might be slightly more convenient (no need for a bottle opener), but are they really worth the sacrifice to the beer? Secondly, what the heck does a wide-mouth bottle improve? You can drink the beer faster? You can get drunk before the beer gets warm? And again, this doesn't do anything to improve the beer!

I dunno, I might be a bit of a snob, but these things just make me shake my head. I wish I could turn the sound off of my TVs so I don't have to hear them.

[HYHYBT]

Well, they widened the opening in soda cans in, I think, the 90s and that worked out well. At least, I *think* most cans I see today are the wider type. Why not with beer?

[siead_lietrathua]

molson's been using twist-caps for quite a while, i thought. at least as long as hubbie's been drinking it, lol.
as to the wide mouth cans/ bottles, it makes it easier to drink with more space for air to flow. like pop-cans.
some innovations have been neat, like alumium or plastic bottling and the Widget. heck even having the diffrent colours of bottle, while it looks like marketing, is to keep UV light from the beer so it stays colder faster (the darker the bottle the better)

but really, the reason they come up with this other stuff for marketing is because they don't want to change the actual drink. if they did they would piss off their current consumers and probably not draw in enough new ones to compensate. they learned from the error of "new coke".

[TheHuckster]

If I understand, twist caps which look like regular "bottle opener" caps hold the same amount of carbonation. Many beers have twist caps like this, not just Molson, and I've never had a problem with it being flat, unless it's well after the expiration date. I'm more upset about twist caps on wine, but that's another topic. As for the wide opening? That doesn't bother me as much. In fact, I feel like the traditional openings are too small for by big mouth.

As for the "blue mountain" Coors bottles, it's nothing more than a gimmick, which is a tactic about as old as advertising itself. I'm sure there are stone billboards in Pompeii that offer a gimmick. It never got me to drink Coors mainly because I hate Coors.

[gremcint]

slightly ot but I thought there were some beers you were supposed to drink warm?

[daleduke17]

The wider mouth (I believe) means that the air can go in to the bottle/can easier and make it go down easier.

[Password]

slightly ot but I thought there were some beers you were supposed to drink warm?

It's not just those you should drink warm, but there are plenty of beers you are best keeping cool (e.g. in a cellar), but not chilling in a fridge.

Personally I find that any beer advertised as requiring chilling is usually a good sign for me to avoid it. Though I accept I'm probably in a minority there sadly.

[protege]

It's not just beer that has some stupid marketing.

Not long ago, one Mercury vehicle was widely promoted...on its high-tech stereo system. Seriously. No mention of the engine's power, the interior room, cargo space, fuel economy, reliability, etc. No, the sole reason someone should have bought one of those cars...was because it had a voice-activated stereo

[bara]

Stupid commercials are half the reason I dont watch TV anymore. The other half are shows like "honey boo boo'.