The cans are done in images of Lino-engravings by a famous artist from Miami, “Attack Peter” is his professional name, I understand.
The art is fun. The cans do a color change thing.
Seriously I could care less what cheapo beer Son-of-a-wrek drinks.
As long as I don’t have a pay for it.
@Gatopescado * pushed me into asking the Dope what’s going on. Is there a movie tie in? Or a series of artists cans? (Also cheap beer drinker, himself*)
Apparently from what I can tell the art has gone viral.
In seriousness: a competitive, comparative, specific slogan like that would be classified by the FTC as a “superiority claim;” Coors and Old Milwaukee would file suit with the FTC against PBR the moment that that slogan saw the light of day, and the FTC would tell PBR: “show your work.” In order to protect such a claim, PBR would need to back it up with some very specific validation (i.e., extensive “claim substantiation” research), which demonstrated that, in taste testing, PBR significantly outperformed those other beers.
I work in advertising and market research, and have, over my career, had several instances in which we were asked to look into what it would take to be able to substantiate a claim like that; in every case, once we documented what the research would require (how much it would cost, and by how much the “superior” product would need to beat the competition in the testing), the idea was quickly dropped.
In a case like this, PBR would need to substantially outperform Coors and Old Milwaukee in a large-scale, blind taste test, and the odds of that actually happening are pretty low.
One thing that’s interesting is that the FTC will not tell a marketer: “in order to substantiate a competitive claim, you have to do exactly X sort of research;” they will simply say, “you need to provide statistically valid substantiation.”
However, what the FTC will say is, “these are examples of research which have been done in previous successful claim substantiation cases” – they leave open the possibility that some other form/format/sample size might be considered to be sufficient, but any marketer which is considering such a claim realizes that they are far better off looking at the “prior art” from successful claim defenses rather than trying to construct a novel approach.
I know people have beer preferences, and are very loyal to their brand, up and until there’s something, say a Viral can artwork or a big sales pitch, that causes them to try a new thing. Generally go back to their favorite.
When the party’s over(heh) a stale beer can the next morning still stinks, no matter the brand or whether or not the can is cool.
(Sorry, Gatopescado….but you know fish can’t smell, the morning after)
And didn’t Budweiser already have a campaign where not only were they the King of Beers and that they were better than all rest? I’m not in marketing, but I doubt that a brewery’s board of directors would appreciate a copy cat campaign series of ads as that isn’twhat they pay good money for.
The fact that you don’t actually see that being done in U.S. advertising tells me, “no, you probably can’t.”
Even if the advertiser uses a specific person to state that “opinion,” the FTC may still view that person as a spokesperson for the company (esp. if it’s a celebrity), and view that statement as a superiority claim, especially if that person says something like “it’s better than Coors.”
Advertisers certainly can show people stating their opinion about their product, but the wording of that will be carefully crafted to not make a direct, competitive superiority claim; something like “it’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted” or “I’ve never tasted a better beer” isn’t going to get the same level of scrutiny.
Indeed. Though, they didn’t actually say “better than all the rest.” The lyrics of that long-running jingle:
The lyrics are actually pretty cunning. “Number one,” “second to none,” and “leading the rest” are undoubtedly supported, claim-wise, by Bud being the best-selling beer in the U.S. at that time, and aren’t a claim of superior taste. “Beer at its best,” similarly, doesn’t directly claim “better than some other beer.”
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