On lazy-ass copywriting.
Heineken Light, from what I've read, has been a huge success for the Dutch brewery. Which makes it an ideal case study for supporting the argument (well, mine) that good advertising is not needed to successfully launch a product.OK. To the ads. Seduce Your Palate? Other ads in the campaign are headlined "Temptation Has A Taste" and "Succumb To Smooth." So, is a low-rent romance novelist daylighting as a copywriter here? This pap just might be the worst beer advertising in the history of hops and barley. Yet, it has worked—or at least, not gotten in the way. It makes one (well, me) consider that a big product shot and big logo, combined with "New" as a headline, is all the "creativity" that's ever really needed in advertising.
(poster on Crosby between Prince & Spring)
previously in skunky beer ads:
1. When beer ads tried harder to suck.
2. Bud Select. Expect Everything?
3. U.S. soccer ads as creative as U.S. soccer team.
4. "Darker. No, make him DARKER."
posted by copyranter @ 11:11 AM
17 Comments:
Yeah. It's boring. They could have just shown the bottle itself with no copy and it would have the same message. It's not like the words add anything.
Crappy advertising but darn good beer.
One of the interesting ad I saw was a BIG bottle of beer and the line simple said, 'Sorry, not actual size'
Obviously, the copy isn't going to win any awards for originality.
And though I am loathe to defend anything I didn't write myself, could it be that the "romance novel" tone stems from the fact that this is a light beer? And that light beer drinkers are typically women? And that maybe there's a certain female demographic that responds to that sort of language?
Or perhaps the phallic bottle combined with bosom-heaving, bodice-ripping copy makes women long for a Heinken Light every time they fire up their vibrators.
The world may never know.
Actually the WORST beer ad ever had to be for Kirin when it was first introduced in the States: "Drink Kirin when you're beerin" It was sometime in the early to mid 80s. Of course, I never forgot it, so maybe it did what it was supposed to do.
It looks like someone took a big piss on it! Copyranter, have you been playing water sports on your rant material again?!!?
Obviously, they should have put up a picture of Cobain drinking one.
loulebleu:
The glowing phallic bottle is fine by me. But the writing could have been——oh let me abstain from my usual hyperbole——a trillion times better.
FYI - equally uninspired online advertising from the same Heineken Premium Light campaign -
http://adverlicio.us/heineken_premium_light_succumb_to_smooth_728x90
Boring yes but I have to go with Coors current stuff, (speeding train in stadium, etc.), as being the worst out there.
And it's taken you how long, exactly, to figure out this piece of self-evident wisdom?
ole: It's called "typical Thursday when I have near nothing left to post."
Uninspired, indeed. But don't tell me you haven't shit out a few empty words for a campaign so you could get the fuck out of the office in time for happy hour.
I have. Then again, I have no integrity.
Indeed I have andrew. But I wouldn't shit out crap if I was working on a billboard campaign for such a high-profile client.
I suppose you're right there. On the other hand, I always try to give the benefit of a doubt when I see bad ads for high-profile clients. It could've been done internally, by the CEO's nephew, or the client could have nixed every single good idea that came out of the shop. I suspect that latter in this case.
It's happened to me several times. And it's maddening enough to make my hair go grey and my teeth soggy.
I proofread low-rent erotic romance novels for fun and blog fodder. The last one I proofread included the line, "I yearn for you. I breathe your need." If one of you agency folks could get that on a billboard, I'd be ever so pleased. Maybe for the next candy-flavored version of Camels?
i am an expert on beer advertising.
and i can say, without fear of reprisal, that heineken sucks ass. Light or regular. reason: it swills around in a tanker on a ship for three months before it finally makes it to the good old USandA from holland. then there's another three months before it gets bottled and makes it your hipster hand. by which time it is well and truly skunky. and bears zero resemblance to the refreshing brew back in NL.
but try telling this to your average american, who is so thirsty for "sophistication" that he would happily swill back satan's virally infected urine sample and tell you it was refreshing. so long as it came in a green bottle.
marketing works people! rejoice.
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