Molson Coors, the owner of Miller Lite, is defending the marketing executives behind a recent TV ad that angered some conservatives and warned that it will not tolerate personal attacks on its employees.
The Miller ad, which aired in March for Women’s History Month but resurfaced online this week, dismisses the brand’s previous campaigns that relied heavily on scantily clad women.
Molson Coors chief marketing officer Sofia Colucci faced scathing online personal attacks over the ad and removed her social media accounts in the face of hysterical right-wing outcry.
“People can object to our advertising or our brands, but we will not stand by when people personally attack our employees – especially given that these are company decisions and are never made by a single person,” a Molson Coors spokesperson told the agency. Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Commercial comedian Ilana Glazer denounces the sexist history of beer advertising, in a campaign offering to buy back old Miller Lite posters featuring women in bikinis and turn them into compost for hops used by female brewers.
Molson Coors defends chief marketing officer Sofia Colucci (above) after coming under scathing online personal attacks over a Miller Lite ad satirizing sexist beer advertising
In the ad, which was released in March for Women’s History Month, comedian Ilana Glazer mocks old Miller Lite ads that relied heavily on scantily clad women
The Miller Lite saga – and Molson Coors’ response – is in stark contrast to the way rival Anheuser-Busch handled a parallel Bud Light controversy.
On April 1, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a video to Instagram of herself cracking open a custom can of Bud Light with an image of her face, which she received as a gift from the brewer in a marketing collaboration.
Three days after Mulvaney’s post, Kid Rock posted a video of himself photographing cases of Bud Light, and the controversy exploded — but Anheuser-Busch retreated into silence for weeks after issuing a terse statement.
The company’s lack of public support for Mulvaney infuriated some of the same people it had tried to reach through the campaign, with some gay bars announcing they would stop selling Bud Light.
And like Colucci, Anheuser-Busch vice president of marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, faced fierce online criticism from conservative clients angry about the partnership with Mulvaney.
But instead of publicly supporting Heinerscheid, Anheuser-Busch announced that both she and her boss, Daniel Blake, were taking indefinite leave.
In contrast, Molson Coors was quick to stand behind his own ad and mock critics of the mockery.
“This video was about two things: worm poop and saying women shouldn’t be forced into mud wrestling to sell beer,” a Molson Coors spokesperson told DailyMail.com earlier this week.
“None of these things should be remotely controversial, and we hope beer drinkers can appreciate the humor (and ridiculousness) of this video from March.”
The Miller Lite ad mocked the brand’s previous liberal use of women in bikinis to sell beer
The new ad offered to take old marketing materials from women in bikinis and turn them into fertilizer for female brewers
In the Miller Lite ad, Glazer took a tour of old ads used by the company, including Meghan Markle, Sofia Vergara and Pamela Anderson as the face of the brand.
In the new commercial, released March 7, Glazer discusses the history of women brewers, claiming “without us there wouldn’t be any beer.”
Another ad featured a group of women in crop tops and bikini bottoms standing on the beach asking, “Can you find the bottle of Miller Lite in this photo?”
She begins, “Here’s a little-known fact: Women were among the first to ever brew beer.
How did the industry pay tribute to the founders of beer centuries later? They put us in bikinis.’
Showing off some of the company’s old posters and cardboard cutouts, with the women’s faces now pixelated, the comedian says, “Look at this s***!” Wild!’
“It’s time for beer to make amends with women,” continues the Broad City star. “So today Miller Lite is on a mission to clean up not just their s***, but the entire beer industry.”
Glazer noted that the company had been in the process of buying up some of its old marketing materials online to turn them into compost for female hop farmers to grow more than 1,000 pounds of hops, which would then be sent to female brewers.
She added, “There’s definitely more s*** out there, in your attic, in your garage, in your parents’ basement.
“Send all the s*** you got to Miller Lite and they’ll turn that into good s*** too. So to women, because without us there would be no beer.’
In the campaign on their website, which has since been taken down, the company promises: “We are on a mission to find and buy sexist beer ads from the past and turn them into something good… fertilizer to grow hops, from which hundreds of women benefit brewers.
“So check the attic, your garage, and your basement, and help us turn bad $#!T into good $#!T.”
Miller Lite had made a name for itself in the late 1990s and early 2000s for its commercials and advertisements featuring bikini-clad women. Pictured: Miller Lite models pictured at Playboy’s annual Super Saturday Night event
But the recently surfaced ad has sparked some backlash from right-wing commentators, who have drawn comparisons to the Bud Light campaign with Mulvaney.
Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren tweeted, “No no no no no! Miller Lite is my beer!
‘Who runs these companies?! Bad bad move.’
Conservative sports commentator Clay Travis of Outkick added, “Miller Lite saw the Bud Light disaster and decided they needed their own wake beer ad.
“These companies are broke and have no idea who actually consumes their products.”
The advertising campaign was led by an all-female team, the company announced in a press release, and “continues the brand’s work to empower women in beer.”
Miller Lite had made a name for itself in the late 1990s and early 2000s for its commercials and advertisements featuring bikini-clad women.
It all started with a 1993 commercial featuring a girl in a yellow bikini sitting on the beach, followed just three years later by Miller Lite’s “Bikini Girls” commercial, which features a group of women in bikinis walking past men on the beach. .
Another ad featured a group of women in crop tops and bikini bottoms standing on the beach asking, “Can you find the bottle of Miller Lite in this photo?”
But it seemed to reach its peak in 2003, when they did a series of ads featuring Playboy models Ballinger and Baker.
Their era of bikini-clad women seemed to be coming to an end in 2006 when Erv Frederick, then vice president of marketing, said the company wanted to “transcend the stereotype of men as sophomores” or as “the lowest common denominator.” ‘
Later commercials, including one with Meghan Markle, no longer featured women in bikinis — with the then-actress in a skintight top as she sold a man a beer at a bar and made fun of his skintight jeans.