Men in Thongs and Beer (and Superbowl Ads)

UPDATE from class: Thanks to Azar for the pointer to the incredibly funny iPhone ad spoof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xXNoB3t8vM. And thanks to Prof Bell for two decades of Superbowl ads.


Rolling Rock (beer) tries to leave an impression by making the ad provocative and scandalous.

If you thought you had seen it all in class with the $400 Gucci "man purse," try this: The Rolling Rock "Man in Thongs" ad. A less graphic version of this ad where the VP Marketing pretends to be apologizing, is actually live on TV. You can see his blog here.

Another ad that features the beer ape and the ad with him apologizing...

I dug up the intented takeaway of a related ad plan for the same product here. Bob Lachky, EVP Global Industry Development at Anheuser-Busch, sez:

I also think the cross-platform advertising approach that we are using on Rolling Rock is a great example. It’s kind of like the wardrobe malfunction model. You let people know about it one way, you show it to them like it’s the forbidden fruit. We’re going to run some TV spots (this week) featuring the next faux pas of the Rolling Rock marketing director. He’s going to be like we’re making a mistake, Oh, my gosh, we’re going to put this in on the Super Bowl and it features men in thongs. Research told us this was gong to be great because after all men in Europe wear thongs. Obviously it doesn’t run on the Super Bowl but the day after Super Bowl your guy comes back on TV and says I thought I made the right call but obviously I didn’t. The people in the know have obviously gone to the Web site to see the forbidden Internet piece. It’s a fun way of using TV as a tease and the payoff to the consumer is actually being delivered through the Internet. When you have a limited budget and you’ve got a portfolio our size we had better embrace new media because it is more efficient and it is more in line with the target audience than traditional media is. Not every brand can be a TV brand nor should every brand be a TV brand. In many cases it’s probably not right for the evolution of the brand.

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