I don’t often watch beer ads, but when I do, they’ve got to be something like this:
The billboard that goes with this ad campaign has been up on the Atlanta Highway in Athens for a while now, but it didn’t occur to me to search for it until I had a rather bored moment working the library.? And now, here it is! ?I have to say that, even given some of the great beer ads that TV has sent us, this one ranks up there.
I heard about this clip on NPR, and it’s quite amazing to watch almost thirty years later:
So the newspapers can’t claim to be surprised by their current situation. They just haven’t been smart enough to figure out how to deal with it. Oh, well.
As for the beer ad, what do you think is great about the campaign?
Joe
I think what’s great about it is that they’ve successfully created a character most people (I think) would like to get to know. He seems real somehow. It’d have been really easy for those commercials to devolve into “Chuck Norris” stuff–outrageous claims that we’re supposed to wink at. But they don’t. They’re somehow respectful to this man who doesn’t exist, and I don’t pick up on much irony.
If you go to MY blog (shameless plug) and rummage around in the “Friday Links” section, I have an article from Slate linked that explains just why these commercials are so wonderful. They do a better job than I can.
That’s funny, Michial. I dug the ad precisely because it captures the ironic feel of the Chuck Norris riff. But what sets this ad apart from that amateurish stuff, in my view, is the end of the commercial–it’s not stated by the voiceover (that wouldn’t be nearly as funny), but his “I tend to drink Dos Equis” is the final understated hyperbole–”He’s so cool that he won’t even give our beer a real endorsement!” It reminds me of the early stages of Sprite’s Grant Hill ads (before they became too self-referential).
With regards to newspapers, Joe, perhaps I once again reveal my Ciceronian regard for tradition, but I don’t think it’s insignificant that the Constitution’s first amendment prohibits Congress’s interfering with the press–it’s one of those places where I think that professional reporting is part of what makes our Republic our Republic. I know that Christians throughout the centuries have survived and even thrived in empires of various sorts, and the Anabaptist in me is fine with that, but I tend to agree with David Simon that the decline of the profession of journalism can only be good news for corrupt politicians.
I never got the ads. The character strikes me as not just fiction, but fiction based on fiction. So he is twice removed from being approachable, a caricature of a caricature. But then I’m not a beer drinker (except with the crew after a show), so I am obviously not their target market. I have none of those macho associations with beer or beer drinking.
I kind of think of journalists as the same as artists, professional or otherwise, we will never be rid of them. Or maybe they are more like herpes. Either way, people being journalists is as intrinsic to our being as people being artists. The only thing I think is in jeopardy is the current business model. And based on this video, they have had ample notification to restructure for revenue. No judgement as to whether this is good or bad. Just that they have no one to blame but themselves if they aren’t adapting. And it isn’t professional journalism in general that is in the current crisis of existence, it is specifically print journalism. (Not that professional journalism in general isn’t struggling to justify their importance and relevance.)
Don’t get me wrong. I am one of the remaining few who actually enjoy sitting at the diner at breakfast with eggs overeasy, bacon, wheat toast, grits, coffee and a newspaper. Or even just at home with a newspaper and coffee. But there just aren’t enough of us left to support the current business model. And it is probably at least more “green” for me to sit with my laptop or iPhone instead of those tree killing hard copies.
What I hope is not lost in the process is the esoteric local news. Kind of like?I can’t remember the name of the book store?but there was a book store in the heart of Virginia-Highlands that carried many books, not because they demonstrated some commercial viability, but because they were just good and valuable books. Unfortunately, they were too esoteric (I guess) and the result is the bookstore doesn’t exist anymore.
Joe
I disagree with you here, Joe. I think of journalism not as some ethereal Romantic disposition but as a concrete profession, one that takes training and dedicated time to do properly. Like surgery or police work, I suppose one could do journalism as some kind of hobby on the side while one earns one’s paycheck producing television commercials, but I do think that the goods inherent in a journalistic class (like the goods inherent in surgery as a practice or police work as a discipline) evaporate when there’s no funding to support the actual practice of investigation.
I also tend to think of journalism not as a consumer good that one could live with or without with one’s breakfast; I’ve got no real problem with a change in the vehicle for the content. What I do worry about is that the last couple decades (even before the ‘web became a major player) have seen newspaper bureaus cutting reporters like mad to turn bigger profits. Now that there’s no content to sell, the Internet didn’t have to have a very big stick at all to beat down what remained. I’m not one who believes in “too big to fail,” but I do worry that there’s hardly anybody left to keep a watch on the politicians except those hired by the political establishment itself.
Even as an artist (especially a professional artist) you won’t get any disagreement from me on the value of training, study, and development of one’s craft or discipline.
I just don’t think the threat to one form of journalistic dissemination and business model necessarily equates to the demise of all journalism or journalists, professional or otherwise. They just have to become smarter business people if they want to continue that form.
That’s all I’m sayin’,
Joe