Tuesday’s ad is the first baseball-themed one, which will continue through the World Series. It’s for Hamm’s Beer, and is a newer ad, at least from the period of time when Pabst owned the brand, before selling it to Miller — 1983-99. But it’s a great use of the Hamm’s Bear playing baseball.
There’s only two days left before the new NFL season of football begins on Thursday night. And as we’ve done for the past few years, there are two simple games for Bulletin readers to play, and plenty of room to fit as many as want to play (or at least the first 50 people anyway). Below is the original post from last week with all the details on how to sign up. Don’t be shy, sign up today!
This is the fourth year for the Brookston Fantasy Football Games. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last three, so if you love football and beer, consider joining us again this year. The NFL season begins on Thursday September 9, so you’ve got about a dozen days to sign up.
I’ve again set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool. Up to 50 people can play each game (that’s Yahoo’s limit), so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up for one or even both. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to join each league and play.
Standings for both leagues will be listed at the bottom of the Bulletin’s right column.
In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. I’ve added a new wrinkle this year. Since we’re all very busy, and you (or I) might screw up at least one week, you can now throw out your lowest week. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.
Also, a new feature Yahoo added is the ability to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.
In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 37001 (Brookston NFL Pick To Win)
Password: brookston
If picking all sixteen football game every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Actually this year they added a new feature and I changed the game so to be kicked out you have to be wrong twice. In that way more people stand a better chance of lasting longer into the season. So get one wrong, and you’re still okay, get a second wrong, now you’re gone for the season. Last man standing wins.
Yahoo also added the new feature to this game, too, where we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.
In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 15291 (Soused Survival League)
Password: bulletin
With 50 players allowed in each game, there’s plenty of room, so don’t be shy. Sign up for one or both games. Beginning after the first weekend of the regular season I’ll post the standings on the home page (at the bottom of the right-hand column) and then each Monday after that through the season. Won’t you join us?
This is the fourth year for the Brookston Fantasy Football Games. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last three, so if you love football and beer, consider joining us again this year. The NFL season begins on Thursday September 9, so you’ve got about a dozen days to sign up.
I’ve again set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool. Up to 50 people can play each game (that’s Yahoo’s limit), so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up for one or even both. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to join each league and play.
Standings for both leagues will be listed at the bottom of the Bulletin’s right column.
In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. I’ve added a new wrinkle this year. Since we’re all very busy, and you (or I) might screw up at least one week, you can now throw out your lowest week. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s fun.
Also, a new feature Yahoo added is the ability to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.
In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button (or “Create or Join Group” if you are a returning user). From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 37001 (Brookston NFL Pick To Win)
Password: brookston
If picking all sixteen football game every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Actually this year they added a new feature and I changed the game so to be kicked out you have to be wrong twice. In that way more people stand a better chance of lasting longer into the season. So get one wrong, and you’re still okay, get a second wrong, now you’re gone for the season. Last man standing wins.
Yahoo also added the new feature to this game, too, where we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.
In order to join the group, just go to Survival Football, click the “Sign Up” button and choose to “Join an Existing Group”, then “Join a Private Group”. Then, when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 15291 (Soused Survival League)
Password: bulletin
With 50 players allowed in each game, there’s plenty of room, so don’t be shy. Sign up for one or both games. Beginning after the first weekend of the regular season I’ll post the standings on the home page (at the bottom of the right-hand column) and then each Monday after that through the season. Won’t you join us?
Friday’s ad is more for a specific event, the Boogie Cup, than a beer or brewery. But as the World Cup resumes today, I thought it was appropriate. It was created by GGGrafik Design in 2005 for “Heidelberg’s Boogie Cup amateur soccer championship, infamous for the amount of beer consumed both on the pitch and on the terraces.” Here’s how they describe the creative process. “It’s also a deliberate homage to the great Herbert Leupin. It was voted one of the 100 Best Posters in 2005 from Germany, Switzerland and Austria and was the Gold Winner at the Graphis Poster Annual 2006.” I just thought it was cool.
As the Round of 16 is now over and there’s a couple of days break until the quarter-finals of the World Cup, I though I’d share some pretty cool artwork involving beer and the World Cup. A new design firm in Toronto, Moxy Creative House, has created a series of seventeen posters called Cheers! For the 2010 World Cup.
They design sixteen beer bottles to reflect each of the sixteen countries that made it to the semi-finals, including one showing all sixteen teams.
Then there’s one each for every nation, like this one for the U.S.A.
And here’s the Netherlands.
I asked Moxy president Danial Eckler why they used beer for the posters, and here’s what he told me. “The reason we chose beers is obvious, everyone loves to sip on one for soccer.” Also, they chose the retro look “because of soccer’s and the respective countries rich history” and the “minimalist style is a trademark of our creative company.” I just think they’re pretty cool.
Each of the posters is for sale, 11.75″ x 15.5″, for $25. Or you can get your favorite team plus the poster with all of them for $40, plus $5 shipping and handling.
Embedding is still not working, but you can see all 17 posters in my Flickr Gallery.
You may recall that during the last World Cup in 2006, The Dutch brewery brand Bavaria got themselves in hot wort by stealth marketing their brand during a match where fans wore orange lederhosen with the brewery’s logo on them, an item they sold online at the brewery’s website. I wrote about it then under the title Beer Marketing In Your Underwear? The official beer sponsor, Anheuser-Busch, got their lederhosen in a bunch because they were the “official” beer of the World Cup, ruffling more than a few feathers in Germany with it’s own rich beer history.
Fast forward four years to the World Cup in South Africa and nobody seems to have learned a damn thing from history, except perhaps the Bavaria Brewery. This year, during the match between the Netherlands and Denmark, 36 women were arrested for wearing plain orange dresses in a block of seats. I’m fairly certain it was indeed stealth marketing on the part of the brewery, but they broke no laws. There was no branding on the dresses and orange is the national color of Holland. Bavaria Beer has an entire Flickr gallery devoted to pictures of women wearing their plain orange dresses.
But FIFA stepped in to protect its revenue stream for the millions paid by Anheuser-Busch InBev to be the “official,” and more importantly exclusive, beer of the World Cup. The women were ejected from the game and “arrested under the Contravention of Merchandise Marks Act, which prevents companies benefiting from an event without paying for advertising.” FIFA in a statement said they “view ambush marketing in a very serious light” and called the act of wearing an orange dress an “illicit activity.” The police in South Africa have opened a “criminal investigation,” according to the UK’s newspaper, the Guardian.
But despite the rhetoric, they’re not exactly terrorists. They were all wearing plain orange dresses. Period. Arresting them gave the Bavaria beer brand more publicity than leaving them alone would have. And it does nothing to dispel the image of FIFA and ABIB as thugs who’ll do whatever they like to protect revenue streams above all else, human rights be damned.
As Pete Brown concludes in his own rant over this incident:
Let’s be realistic: even though Bavaria have denied involvement, of course it was a marketing stunt: why else would forty identically dressed women turn up in one block? But it’s a brilliant stunt: once again, Bavaria has had acres of free press coverage, and Fifa and Bud have been made to look really quite sinister and scary.
But that’s because they are. We all know it’s a marketing stunt, but it doesn’t break any rules. The rules prohibit competitive beer branding around the stadium. There was no branding. End of.
As the Bavaria spokesperson says, Fifa don’t have a trade mark on the colour orange. This is an astonishing abuse of human rights — admittedly a trivial one in the context of South Africa’s recent history, but still deeply disturbing, because it’s all about protecting the commercial rights of a beer brand. No brand should have the power to do something like this. If Fifa and Bud are to remain consistent in this policy, we should expect them to eject and detain any England fan with a St George’s cross flag, T-shirt or face paint, because this is a device used extensively in marketing by Bombardier, a competitive beer brand to Budweiser. That would be utterly absurd, outrageous and unacceptable of course. But then so is this.
How A-B InBev think this ugly, bullying behaviour helps enhance Budweiser’s reputation is beyond me.
I know it’s naive to think that any international sporting event should be just about the game, but I continue to hold out hope. But this is one more potent reminder of how the world really works. What Bavaria did may be technically against FIFA’s “policy” (which is very different from a “law”) yet they treated the policy-breakers like terrorists and used police powers essentially to carry out and punish people for breaking the rules of a corporation, reminding me chillingly of the way the military and police have been used to break up strikers. Money and power increasingly call the shots while human beings and small enterprise get trampled. I, for one, am going to start wearing a lot more orange.
UPDATE: A few more worthwhile articles about the incident have popped up. These include another Guardian piece, Another triumph for Fifa’s chillingly efficient rights protection team, by Marina Hyde, and Central State Asylum has a nice post from a legal standpoint. But perhaps most hilarious, someone has set up a Facebook page, I’ll buy Bavaria for the match to annoy FIFA.
UPDATE 6.19: Apparently the gals in orange did show up for the game versus Japan on June 19.
This is a bit of a head-scratcher, especially give the recent troubles that Toyota has been experiencing. You probably already know about my friend and colleague Rick Lyke‘s great campaign, Pints For Prostates, that seeks simply to raise awareness about prostate cancer and encourage men to get tested for it. As a cancer survivor, Lyke is understandably passionate about his cause and has done a lot of good work toward his goals.
As he notes, despite all the Toyota controversy, the car company is, of course, still trying to sell its cars. One marketing scheme they’ve introduced is asking NASCAR fans to “Sponsafy” a race car using an online graphics program. Fan-craeated cars are posted in an online gallery and are voted on, with the winner having their actual car design on the pace car for NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race in Charlotte, NC on May 22, 2010.
Here, I’ll let Rick pick up the story: “Well, I thought “sponsafying” a car for the contest might be a fun way to promote the Pints for Prostates campaign and reach a few men with a simple message: “Get a PSA Test.” After all, look at what the NFL did for the cause of breast cancer awareness early this past season by allowing players to wear pink.” So he designed and submitted the car below.
Here’s where things take a turn for the weird. Again, here’s Rick:
Amazingly, Toyota Racing has rejected the design saying it “Contains offensive or inappropriate content.” Really? What is offensive about a car design that encourages men to pay attention to their health? Using the universal language of beer to reach men with an important health message certainly cannot be inappropriate for a sport that was once sponsored by a tobacco company and has had cars sponsored by beer, spirits and wine brands for decades. Makes you wonder if Toyota has something against men’s health?
There is still time for the Pints for Prostates ride to be part of the Toyota Sponsafy promotion and with your help we can make it happen. Please send a quick email to Kym Strong (kym_strong@toyota.com) of Toyota Motorsports and Greg Thome (greg_thome@toyota.com) of Toyota Corporate Communications. Use the subject line “Race the Pints for Prostates Car.”
As of this morning, there were 6,390 cars on Toyota’s online gallery but none with a healthy, helpful message to keep men safe from prostate cancer. And the reason for that — which I still can’t quite wrap my head around — is because it’s “offensive” (to whom?) and is “inappropriate content (what exactly?).” Take a look at the design. What do you see? I see a light blue ribbon, the logo (a pint glass with the text “Pints for Prostates” and another light blue ribbon) and the text “Get A PSA Test” in several places. Seriously, WTF!?! If you agree that makes no sense, let’s all e-mail Toyota as Rick suggests. Tell them you don’t find Pints For Prostates inappropriate at all, but you are offended by Toyota’s response to it.
Friday’s ad is for Schlitz, and seemed appropriate since we’re in the waning days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This Schlitz ad was part of their “Real Gusto” campaign and ran during the 1964 Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan. The ad features sportscaster Tom Harmon, father of actor Mark Harmon, who anchored the Tokyo games coverage on NBC.
I may have some of the facts here wrong or may simply be missing something, but over the last week of paying some passing attention to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver — especially Curling — an odd picture has emerged concerning beer and America at the Olympics. A few nights on the Stephen Colbert Report, Colbert visited several nation’s International Houses, places for the athletes, visitors and sponsors from individual countries to go and relax with their fellow citizens and watch the competitions they don’t have tickets to, as well. Usually, they show off part of their culture — or the sponsor’s products — and they’re also places to celebrate. For example, at the Swiss House they had fondue, the Irish House featured folk music and the Russian House had foosball hockey. After visiting several houses, Colbert ends the segment back at the Irish House, saying it was because USA House didn’t have a bar.
That’s right, even after doubling the size of USA’s hospitality and having two separate houses (one in Vancouver and one in Whistler) there was no bar for American athletes or sponsors. Now, I don’t know for certain that we’re the only international house without a bar, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me. We’ve done our level best to separate alcohol and move it into this otherworld that’s separate from the regular world that everyone lives in. So besides the fact that every other country can handle having alcohol be a part of their celebrations, at USA Central it’s believed that sports and alcohol can’t mix. You see it in college sports. You see it in the drive to eliminate drinking at professional sporting events. It’s always motivated by the fact that because some people can’t handle themselves, so then the logic is everyone should be prohibited from enjoying themselves. I’m sure other countries have their share of people trying to ruin it for everyone else — but somehow they’ve managed to make it the problem of those individual people and not the majority who can just get on with it. I, too, cringe whenever I see a bad drunk but not because I fear for that person, but because I know that neo-prohibitionists will look at that person and extrapolate his problem to include everyone who drinks. And so one result is the American Olympic Committee concludes it’s too risky for there to be a bar in our international house, despite the fact that craft beer is something America should be justly proud of.
I don’t recall who originally Tweeted this, but I believe it was one of the Alströms, either Todd or Jason, so thanks to whichever one of you passed along these interesting Super Bowl statistics. The statistics I’m talking about came from the NielsenWire, the same folks that tally who watches which TV shows. While it’s believed by most people that the Super Bowl is a huge revenue generator for alcohol, especially beer, and snack foods, it would appear that’s not actually the case. In fact, the Super Bowl weekend actually ranks seventh. According to Nielsen’s research, 9 in 10 Will Watch Super Bowl at Home; Most will Spend the Same or Less on Food and Beverages. According to the data, 90% of everyone who watches the Saints and Colts vie for the Lombardi trophy this Sunday will be either at home or a friend/relative’s house. Of those, 95% are planning on buying less beer and food. That’s welcome news for grocery stores but not so good for bars, brewpubs and restaurants.
Here’s the breakdown of where people will watch the Super Bowl.
Here’s a chart of football watching spending. Sadly, crackers outsell my beloved potato chips.