Poor Miller Lite. They invented light beer. That usually buys you something.
Too bad being first “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
Miller Lite’s “Tastes Great, Less Filling” slogan is still a classic. Someone used it as a line to me on Twitter yesterday. So it still resonates.
Along the way, countless other light beers flooded the market. Better marketer and market share leader Anheuser-Busch offered up Bud Light. And Miller figured out that their epic slogan merely advertised the product category.
And if you dominate a product category the way that Gillette razors do, it’s OK for you to promote the product category. Ninety percent of customers will buy your brand anyway.
But it’s not OK for a relatively small market share beer, such as Miller Lite.
So their execs made the (probably) wise decision to stop advertising for all light beers. They ditched the slogan.
The problem is that sometimes a slogan is more than a slogan.
In this case, the slogan was the entire identity of Miller Lite. And bad things happen when you throw your entire identity away.
Your customers don’t know you. They sure can’t love you.
Countless movies feature the line, “I don’t even know who you are anymore,” for a reason.
In a product category such as domestic light beer — where the differences in taste are ever so slight — love is everything.
So every couple of months Advertising Age chronicles the latest woes of Miller Lite. The most recent was published Jan. 15, 2009, under the headline: “Miller Lite Posts Worst Quarter in More Than a Decade.”
MillerCoors’ flagship brand has struggled in recent years, generally posting incremental losses or tiny gains. Shipments were relatively flat during the first half of 2008, but they fell 3.6% in the third quarter, and that deficit doubled in the fourth quarter, a sign that the brand is in freefall.
Such sad news less than two weeks before former spokesman Bob Uecker’s birthday.
The beer’s still the same, but the love is not.
I see Miller Lite ads. Some of them entertain me. But then the next one is different. And so on.
None of them build the long-term images about which David Ogily spoke poetically.
Miller Lite is doomed unless it can find another big idea that resonates with beer drinkers.
And data such as these intensify my belief in Kevin Roberts’ notion of Lovemarks.
For consumer products, it must be about love.
I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Roberts this week. Tune back in Tuesday for his thoughts on love in a bad economy.
I'm a cognitive scientist and communication scholar who manages a psychophysiology lab at Texas Tech. I teach courses about the cognitive processing of media messages and research methods.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it’s possibly a problem with beer in general as well, Sam.
Sales of wine and spirits are up as both health and taxes come to the fore. People want to watch their health and weight more and turn to the drinks with less calories – wine and liquor.
Of course, sales in bars are still high for beer products, but at home there’s a definite swing in what’s being consumed.
Then again, being a Scot, maybe I’m just biased. The whole idea of a “lite” beer is alien to us hard drinkers…
Danny Brown’s last blog post..Lessons From Pyromaniacs
These trends are true — at least they were before the recession. Beer is still pretty cheap. Hmmm. Now I’m curious about that.
At any rate, they’re still not buying store label wine and generic whiskey. They flock to these big labels. A couple of years ago, I saw a December Playboy, and I was AMAZED at how many of the ads were hard liquor ads. It’s certainly en vogue to consume spirits.
Just last night I was sitting in the bar of one of the nicest restaurants in Lubbock (drinking a Dos Equis), and some guy came in with an enormous “Happy Birthday” gift bag. Apparently the recipient wasn’t there yet, he pulled out this massive Crown Royal gift set.
Tell me that’s not all marketing? Crown Royal, to me, is no different than a dozen slightly less expensive competitors. But somehow that silly velvet bag gets people.
If they were to ditch that — like Lite’s slogan — they’d have problems in a hurry.
Sam, that Velvet bag is great for carrying all of one’s multi-sided Dungeons & Dragons dice. You just have to wait until your parents buy a bottle before you can get one.
Branding and Identity are SO important today because there is so much competition, and goods aren’t just selling a product, they sell an image. It is why Starbucks can sell a cup of bitter coffee for $4. They aren’t selling coffee, they are selling a social status.