Miller Lite “Man Up” Commercials – A Marketing Review
I don’t know about you, but one of the latest advertising campaigns for Miller Lite beer is rather disturbing.
Really disturbing.
The new commercials basically feature a guy ordering a light beer from a female bartender. The guy either doesn’t know what he wants to drink, or he flat out refuses an offer of Miller Lite from the bartender. In each of the commercials, the guy is then portrayed to be a woman by having some kind of woman fashion, whether it’s by carrying a purse, wearing a skirt, wearing thong panties, or even having a lower back tattoo. The guy goes back to his male friends at a table and faces further ridicule. The male friends, naturally, are all looking like regular guys and drinking Miller Lite.
Let’s take a look at a few examples and see how MillerCoors is insulting its core customers.
Miller Lite – skirt commercial
Up first we have a man who doesn’t really care about how a beer tastes. Believe it or not, but there are a lot of guys out there who take pride in drinking the cheapest, crappiest beer available for sale. It’s what they’ve been drinking for a long time. It’s probably what they would prefer if they were to reach into an ice cold cooler filled with complete garbage and the most expensive imported beers.
Is there anything wrong with not caring about the taste of not just a beer, but a light beer? Hell no!
But according to the commercial this is wrong and the man is perceived as being a woman because he doesn’t care about the taste of a domestic light beer. They show him wearing a skirt as he walks back to his table in disgrace.
The end of the commercial has the guy “waking up” and finally realizing his mistake. He claims that he “lost the skirt” and has a Miller Lite. A woman walks by the table and tells him that his fly is down. Dumbass!
Miller Lite – lower back tattoo commercial
Up next we have a different guy ordering a beer from a different woman bartender with an attitude problem.
When she asks him if he cares about how it tastes, he replies that he’s “not a taste kind of guy.” She then correctly guesses that he’s more of a “lower back tattoo kind of guy.” Sure enough, as he walks back to his table (after first flirting with a female customer), he’s showing off a lower back tattoo that many women find fashionable these days.
Once again, those people who don’t care about taste in a domestic light beer are referred to as women. That’s real classy, guys!
Miller Lite – carry-all / purse commercial
This third example once again has a guy ordering a beer from yet another female bartender with an attitude problem. Following the pattern, he’s again referred to as a woman because apparently taste is not very important to him.
“When you start caring, put down your purse and I’ll give you a Miller Lite,” she told him.
He looks down at his carry-all and then back up to the bartender in disbelief. “It’s a carry-all.”
“No, it’s not,” she responded while shaking her head.
The only good thing about this commercial is that it reminds me of one of my favorite episodes in Seinfeld.
Seinfeld – “The Reverse Peephole” segment
But besides reminding me of something vastly superior than this crappy commercial, once again Miller Lite shows absolutely no taste (pun intended) in their current method of advertising.
There is a fourth commercial, but I couldn’t find it on YouTube. In the fourth one, a guy once again asks for just a light beer and the woman bartender offers him a Miller Lite. He refuses and she asks him if he wants a Miller Lite a second time. Perhaps she didn’t understand “no.” He again refused and the bartender told him not to get his “panties in a bunch.”
Apparently it’s wrong to turn down a bartender’s suggestion when she keeps making the same offer over and over and you really don’t want the drink. The guy walks away, and sure enough, the camera panned down to show thong panties sticking up from underneath his pants. Yikes! The woman bartender has a smirk on her face, taking pride in correctly guessing the guy’s hidden secret. In the end, a different woman walks up to him, tugs on his panties and slips him a dollar before giving him a hard slap on the butt.
Gee, do you think it would be okay for a guy to do the same thing to a woman in a bar? Hmmm. Probably not. Touching a woman’s underwear and slapping her on the ass is usually referred to as sexual harassment and not taken kindly by too many women.
So what are we seeing here in this disturbing set of Miller Lite commercials?
First of all, Miller Lite is basically insulting every single guy that doesn’t like their product. It doesn’t matter that they apparently put a lot of effort into the taste of it. If you’re a man that doesn’t care about its taste, then the company has just branded you as a woman.
Last time I checked, that’s exactly how you turn away potential customers.
You don’t come out saying that if you don’t want or don’t care for the taste of something then you must be inferior. That’s just asinine!
Second, Miller Lite is part of the advertising bandwagon that boosts women in male dominated areas and also uses the straight, white male as the punching bag. It’s no coincidence that the women bartenders in these Miller Lite commercials are good looking and also have attitude problems. It’s one thing to joke around with customers while everybody is having a good time, but these women bartenders are downright insulting. Do they not want to earn tips? Haven’t they heard of something called charm?
Nope.
Modern advertising has taught us that it’s cool for women to have attitudes. It’s also perfectly acceptable to portray white men as idiots, criminals, cheaters and bumbling fools. More of these examples will be pointed out in the near future.
In one of the strangest observations, these Miller Lite “Man Up” commercials are ironic when compared to 2006-07’s vastly superior Miller Lite “Man Laws” commercials.
Miller Lite – Man Laws commercial compilation
Q. Would the Men of the Square Table have permitted their beer company to portray men as women just because they don’t necessarily have a preference in which light beer they drink?
A. No way!
The bottom line is that you’re still a man and you’re still drinking cold beer, whether it’s at a bar or with friends in a different setting. While the Men of the Square Table are more concerned about drinking protocols and certain rituals and procedures, they never would have allowed their own company to insult men in general.
In comparison to Miller Lite, the current Miller High Life commercials are outstanding. Actually, they’re outstanding anyway, whether in a comparison or not. They’re that good.
Miller High Life – commercial skybox commercial
The High Life commercials are nearly perfect for reaching out to the blue collar guys looking to relax and enjoy some cheap beer. The company has something really good going with the delivery men actors getting out the company’s message.
I don’t know why the Miller Lite commercials decided to do the opposite and insult their main customers. Maybe they’re looking in the wrong direction in trying to be funny. Maybe they’re doing it just to create an Internet buzz.
The ultimate ironic part of the Miller Lite “Man Up” commercials is that these “men” are sitting around being fashionable and drinking LIGHT BEER! It’s nothing short of a travesty that light beers have ruled the domestic market since the early 1990s. That’s marketing for you!
I’ll tell you what.
I’ve never been a fan of Miller Lite (I actually don’t like the taste of their beer), and because of these current “Man Up” commercials, I’ll never even consider trying their product again. Screw ’em!
My preferences in domestic beer?
Pabst Blue Ribbon, Yuengling and Samuel Adams.
Samuel Adams, not Samuel Jackson Beer.
Chappelle’s Show – Samuel Jackson Beer skit (WARNING – UNCENSORED)
Good times.
I agree 100%, I get mad every time I see one of these commercials. Most of the toughest guys I know don’t care how the beer taste. If a cheaper beer lets them hit the bar one more time before pay day, they’ll take it every time.
Its not like miller lite taste all that great anyway. I’d rather buy high life and use the saved money to buy some occasional Yuengling or Killians when I want to actually enjoy the taste.
since when is “manliness” tied in with “appreciating how pretty something tastes”?
ask yourselves: how many girly women like appletinis and cosmos and vodka-crans? and now how many of these girly women like dewars on the rocks?
Ignoring the irony of a cheap “lite” beer manufacturer arguing anything on the basis of taste and manliness, there’s something about the chauvinism in these commercials that makes me cringe. Do I support lower-back tattoos, man purses and cat costumes? No, but I find the idea of a bartender straight-up ostracizing someone for their personal choice to be kind of disgusting. And I also see something wrong with the use of a woman in the role of sissy-basher, as if it’s okay, since it’s not some big, queer-baiting hick.
Miller Lite is definitely trying to appeal to something very base and reactionary. In the long-run, I think people will look back on this series of commercials as a real low-point.
If I’m not mistaken, light beer was created to try to get more women to drink beer.
More to the point, anyone who really cared about the taste of their beer, would not be drinking any light beer.
Their commercials are like ridiculing someone for drinking Starbucks instead of Sanka.
Before these commercials came out, someone suggested I wasn’t a man because I was drinking a crafted triple IPA, while he was tipping back a Miller Lite. I just had to laugh.
These commercials are totally ridiculous.
The Miller High Life commercials are insulting also. It’s the same concept, either you drink our beer or you will be labeled a snooty person.
I agree that if you want a beer with flavor you would get some Killian’s Red or some real German bier.
Lighten up. Advertising is just that advertising, if you don’t like it, change the channel. If you are truly swayed by a commercial in regards to anything, you should really have your heads examined. These commercials are meant to do nothing more than highlight the first name in lite beer since its inception, if you are offended by it, again change the channel. As for your comments here that most manly men don’t care how there beer tastes, really? i think not, otherwise the cheap beers on the market would rule the market share and they are not even close.
@ bps5178
Real men drink beer to get drunk! Period. LOL at people who drink beer for the taste. Really? Its called soda… spike it with some liquor.