The Budweiser frogs are so right and so wrong

I heard a radio ad earlier today that struck me. It was the voices of those Budweiser frogs talking about the ad campaign by Miller Brewing and basically slamming Miller for claiming to be “The President of Beers”. The frogs went on to talk about how Miller’s advertising agency should be “handing out pink slips” to the folks who came up with that ad campaign. “Is that the best they could come up with?”, the frogs ask rhetorically.

Never have imaginary frogs been both so right and so wrong.

As a branding initiative, claiming to be “President of beers” after Budweiser has already staked out the position of “Kind of beers” is truly unimaginative, silly, and a sorry attempt at positioning. I think Miller ought to not only rethink who is working on the creative team but also rethink who is approving such advertising. Indeed, couldn’t they have done better than that?

But oh how the frogs are wrong also.

Here is Budweiser, “The king of beers”, right about the silly strategy Miller chose but sinking to the same level by responding to the attack.

Is it not sad that we live in a country where we actually are entertained by the inner workings of branding strategy and advertising agencies?

Here’s a bit of advice for both Anheuser-Busch and Miller: If talk about your branding strategies IS the message, then the branding strategies on both sides are losers.

Americans are much more sophisticated about the media we consume than we ever used to be. Nothing wrong with that…BUT, the sad thing is that we have turned the inner workings of the media into entertainment itself. We know more about the media than ever, but it is not enough for branders to simply acknowledge that we are in on the game. Clever as that may seem, it advances nothing. I know the game. You know the game. I know that you know the game. I know that you know that I know the game. Why, therefore, don’t we just take the game to the next level?

Can’t we all grow up a little bit, acknowledge that we are more media savvy than ever before and simply expect better communication and more sophisticated advertising messages that speak to real benefits, address real problems, and inform and persuade us on the power of the message alone? Whatever happened to branding that had real substance?

Give us substance!