“Thanks, guys. Have a seat, and let’s try to hammer out the details of where we’re taking this ad campaign next. Roger, you have the floor.”
“Thanks, Lloyd. So, as you guys are probably aware, we started out with we called a ‘vented can’ which for all intents and purposes was not actually vented, but just a wider-mouthed aluminum can, that we convinced these morons was allowing them to pour Coors Light into their faces a little quicker than they were able to before.”
“And it worked?”
“You bet your ass it did.”
“Wow.”
“Yup. Vented cans, a quicker pour, more beer in their mouths, more money in our pockets. Pretty simple. But as most things do, that ran its course, and we had to move on to something else.”
“Ah. Then it was the ‘coldness’ thing, right?”
“Bingo. As a flavor no less. We crammed the word ‘cold’ into 30-second spot as many times as we possibly could. ‘Cold brewed, cold bottled, cold poured, ice cold, cold as the Rockies, coldest tasting beer around, cold, cold, fuckin’ cold… and they ate that shit right up.”
“They bought the ‘cold as a flavor’ thing?”
“Hook, line and sinker. These are Coors Light drinkers, for fuck’s sake.”
“Ah. Good point. So, then what happened?”
“Well, sales dipped a bit. Budweiser started to push the whole ‘drinkability’ angle, Miller Lite all but told beer drinkers that drinking anything other than Miller Lite would doom them to a life of virginity, and we knew it was time to reexamine our angle and take ‘cold’ to another level.”
“And how’d you guys manage to do that?’
”Temperature-sensitive thermal chromatic ink technology.”
“What the what?”
“Labels and cans that turned blue when the beer was cold.”
“But couldn’t you just touch the-”
“We’re dealing with Coors Light drinkers. Sensory perception is not really an arrow they’ve got in their quivers. These are the kinda goons that’ll go shirtless at a tailgate party and sunburn themselves purple. Or the kind of fellas that get distracted by shiny things…like a baby, or a dog might.”
“But touch is one of the most primal-”
“Look, we made shiny cans and labels that turned colors, and they ate it right up.
“Wow.”
“But then, just like the ‘cold as a flavor’ thing, having a ‘cold’ beer wasn’t enough, and we had to reevaluate our angle. That’s what we do. Throw a flurry of punches, then rope-a-dope for a bit, before we come back swingin’.”
“Ah.”
“So that’s when we dug back into our back catalog for a little ‘Coldness’ 2 – The Sequel.”
“More coldness?”
“Yup. Next-level coldness. We figured we’d maxed out the ‘cold as a flavor’ thing, but we thought the temperature-sensitive ink thing might still have legs, so we came out with the concept of ‘SUPER cold’.
“So, like…colder than cold?”
“You betcha. SUPER cold. Says it right there on the label. Plain as day.”
“And they bought that the difference between cold and ‘SUPER cold’ was nothing more than adding a little something to the label? ”
“Well, that and the reason why we’re having this meeting… to unveil our great new ad campaign for TV. Check this out.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9jIsXp8sQQ
“Well, that’s awkward.”
“It’s Ice Cube!”
“I know it’s Ice Cube. Didn’t he lose all his cred wh-”
“He used to drink St. Ides and rap about having sex with the police!”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“He’s a movie star, and a rapper, and he’s got Ice in his name! Get it? It’s advertising gold!”
“Yeah, but he’s spent the past decade making movies about driving a bunch of kids around in a minivan and rapping about Kool-Aid.”
“Well, we tried to get Ice T, but he said something about ‘wack-ass beer for sorority bitches’ and told us in no uncertain terms, to go fuck ourselves.”
“That’s fine. The spot wouldn’t have been any less awkward…”
“And the only other option we really had was Vanilla Ice. And, uh…”
“Yeah. Maybe Ice Cube wasn’t a bad choice after all.”
“Wait, wait…check this out.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhvacspIFSk&feature=related
“Uh…is that porn?”
“Gah, nevermind. How ‘bout this?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_6GvfhOtmg&feature=relmfu
“He’s just sitting by himself at a rooftop party and talking to a bottle of beer.”
“Awesome, right?”
“Maybe it’s just me, but a has-been sitting by himself, yelling at shitty beer at a rooftop party seems more bat shit crazy than awesome. How come nobody’s telling him he’s had a few too many? Who the fuck talks to beer?”
“Oh, come on man.”
“That’s…(sigh)”
“Yeah?”
“Cold.”
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