Hops Scotch?

How does one market their product to future generations without targeting a demographic that cannot legally enjoy their product? That's the paradox that breweries face in the United States. Smaller brewers don't worry themselves with this nonsense. It's the big brewers with the largess of advertising dollars that focus on ways to sustain their primary audience. It's the youth that will first get drunk off their product. Let's cite some specific examples of the subconscious youth movement hidden behind farcical comedy.

Coors Light Code Blue - So the mountains on the label of the bottle and the side of the can turn blue when your beer is optimally cold? Really? It's not like your average boozebag carries around a thermometer like they are checking on their Thanksgiving turkey to make sure the beer is ready to consume. If you can't tell that your beer is cold with your hands, you are a dumb ass. They had this fad when I was in middle school called Hypercolor. They were articles of clothing that would change color when the temperature of the fabric changed. So you'd walk up to people and you'd show them this by breathing on your sleeve. This would get boring after awhile and the fabric would lose its cool properties. Sounds like something that would entertain a little kid or a teenager. Kind of like little blue mountains? Exactly.

Bud Light Tailgate Approved - Jimmy Football has some ideas to make the game day experience better and they all include your favorite watered down session beer. A grill/cooler, a beer koozie that is camoflauged by fake grass, beer cans that are different colors, a foam finger that holds your beer, a case of beer that plays mp3s, a dog that is your tailgate companion and a gun that shoots out ketchup, mustard and mayo simultaneously. Clever ideas and they go for the jugular by spoofing infomercials but c'mon. You are targeting youths, the only people that would willingly paint their faces, carry a foam finger and need to hide their koozie in the grass.

Molson Canadian Guy - The Canadiens are clever too. (What is that all aboot?). In one ad, they want you to believe that drink their beer is like drinking in frigid conditions with deer, bears, figure skaters and hockey players. Another ad of note is the one where the Molson higher up walks around shooting a t-shirt gun giving away free t-shirts at things that the gun shouldn't be aimed at. What a way to encourage insubordinance and delinquency.

Other examples - Lower calorie options like MGD 64 and Michelob Ultra that caters to anorexic chicks. Mini 'baby' sized bottles of Miller High Life and Heineken keg cans. These ploys have existed since the dawn of man with the likes of Spuds McKenzie and the Budweiser Frogs.

Now I know what you're gonna say 'Where's your sense of humor?'. The ads range from mildly humorous to hilarious but they send a mixed message. The beer companies will never admit it. Any unsupervised kid under 21 can claim they are of age and visit their websites easily. The ads are commonplace on NFL Sundays. I'm about as pro drinking as they come and I think the whole thing is ridiculous.

I think that they should lower the drinking age to the voting age. If you can defend our country, you should be able to drink. More importantly, parents need to do the best job that they can to help their kids by promoting social responsibility with regards to the consumption of alcohol. Maybe they won't listen but at least they were armed with information that they could have decided to use.