Wine drinkers are a fickle bunch. They have no loyalty, either choosing whichever bottle is on special down at the supermarket, or travelling the country in search of the latest medal-winning vineyard. There are some among them, no doubt, who would drink vinegar -- provided it was bottled and labeled appropriately, and Michael Cooper told them it was nouveau chic.
Beer drinkers, on the other hand, are a different breed. It seems that, like smokers, they often remain loyal to the same brand for years. Is this because making a choice at the supermarket is too complicated for them? Is it easier just to grab for the familiar, a product that’s been tried and tested on many a merry occasion before? Have they killed too many brain cells to think outside the regular box of beers?
The beer companies certainly seem to think so. They obviously view their customers as a horde of unintelligent morons – or at least they used to. When it comes to beer, advertisers have consistently aimed for the macho blue-collared bigot, the work-a-day average kiwi bloke who remains proud of his political incorrectness and happily chauvinistic. He - it’s never she - may go to raging beach parties full of brainless bikini babes, or alternatively, stay at home drinking with other males of a similar IQ and dream of Swedish volleyball chicks instead.
Dreaming about women seems to be a more viable option for these types. The Speights bloke for instance found it more comfortable to drink with his old crusty mate rather than actually going on a date with a hot barmaid who was willing to pay for everything. Or maybe the Speights bloke was just too dense to realise she was asking him on a date in the first place.
You have to wonder though, is this the only demographic in New Zealand society that drinks beer? Of course it isn’t. Lion Red realised this a few years back, and tried to appeal to a more sophisticated customer. Their ‘Red Men’ add campaign showed beer drinkers a New Zealand which was way too cosmopolitan and progressive for the ‘typical’ kiwi customer to swallow. These adds were set in pubs and nightclubs that looked more like circuses or the Moulin Rouge. They were populated by midgets, Asians, intelligent-looking women and old men in leather and PVC.
The working man was still represented in this campaign, but this time by a gang of road workers who looked more like the Village People. One line in particular stood out: “We’re Red Men, Red Men, extremely well-read men.” This was clearly too much, too soon for the more traditional majority clientele, and the add campaign was quickly dropped. The Red Men were replaced by the kind of lager louts found in Tui commercials. Lion Red were still progressive enough to feature Asians though, albeit Japanese stereotypes who couldn’t pronounce ‘Rion Led’ properly.
A similar deviation from the comforting ‘norm’ spelt disaster for the DB breweries through the nineties. They made the fatal mistake of allowing their rugged ‘man alone’ Clydesdale bloke to show human sensitivity. The adverts became way too sentimental when the Crumpian hero was almost reduced to a blubbering mess by the ill health of his beloved horse. You can imagine the reaction of macho beer drinkers across the country: “What a sook!”
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the DB guy began to foster a love interest. The whole thing degenerated into a soap opera, and beer drinkers were left feeling awkward and psychologically scarred. DB kept a low profile for a while after that, but slowly climbed the ladder of public approval again, hoping to resuscitate sales with a pseudo-heroic, idiotic, vacuous fireman.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved my beer as much as the next man (or person). But does the average kiwi bloke still need to adopt a Crumpian philosophy and don a bushman’s hat every time he enjoys a cold one? It would be easy to laugh and say the advertisers have got it all wrong. I’d like nothing better than to insist that the beer drinkers of New Zealand are really not that stupid. But just consider the amount of market research advertisers do. They know their customers, and they know what appeals to them. Beer adverts are therefore a worrying indication of what many beer drinkers value, and how little we’ve been progressing.
Advertisers are still totally hammering the insecure masculinity angle today. Consider the goals and intentions behind All Blacks-endorsed moisturiser, the ‘Mantrol’ safe-driving campaign, and adds for ‘man-food’ snacks and cave-man-esque ‘man dip,’ for example. It seems to me that those who lament and ridicule ‘P.C.-gone-mad’ have little to get upset about after all: a large portion of Kiwis are obviously still just as bigoted, narrow minded and un-P.C. as they were twenty years ago, and for this we have commercial advertising to thank in no small measure. If things don’t improve in fact, I might even consider becoming a wine drinker.
Yeah, right!
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