Ahh, it’s super bowl time again. That means snacks, sacks and wisecracks for those of us who watched both the game and the commercials. And for the second year in a row, the game was exciting enough that I wasn’t too disappointed by the lackluster bunch of ads.
The one ad that I was especially looking forward to was the Miller High Life 1 second ad. I saw a commercial for the ad (that’s right, an ad for an ad) a few days before the game, and was immediately impatient to see what they’d cooked up.
I’m pleased to say that it was everything I hoped for. Funny, fast, and just unexpected enough to catch me off guard.
But what made this the best ad of the day? It’s simple. Well, no I guess it’s not simple, given all the efforts Miller has put into their High Life branding strategy over the years. But the groundwork has been laid, so for now it is simple.
Miller has done what we all need to be doing. They’ve been building the High Life Brand into something that has real appeal to middle class America. The spokesperson for the product is a blue-collar delivery guy who is so much more than what his job tells him he is.He’s a beer connoisseur, and sometimes feels like the only sane person in a world full of crazy bad-beer drinkers. See this ad, where our hero takes his cues from Robin Hood, stealing from the rich people in the skybox and giving to the everyday folks in the cheap seats. With the current (and to a large extent ever-present) popularity of bashing the rich, this is a man who has wide appeal. He’s like the people many of us know – a regular guy who likes to eat a hot dog, drink a cold beer, and is occasionally a bit eccentric.
So with all this groundwork laid, Miller High Life can afford to give you an ad that simply features our buddy the delivery man shouting “High Life!” in a room plastered with Miller logos. He’s waving his hands to get you to pay attention to what’s important about this ball game – the Beer. His Beer. Your Beer. Our Beer. The one that promises that in every bottle, you get a bit of the High Life.
Oh, and just so nobody thinks I’ve lost my mind and/or taste buds, while I do think these ads are brilliant, I’m still a Sam Adams kind of guy.
(want another take on the super bowl ads? See what some of my favorite ad writers think. Steve Banis and MaryAnn Rodgers have a great understanding of what all this means in the Banis Burst Marketing Blog. And Seth Stevenson at Slate Magazine takes a more cynical, more humorous look at the batch of ads in his Ad Report Card.)
