Campaign summary.
Miller Lite’s Bad $#!T to Good $#!T campaign aims to apologise for problematic advertisements the company has produced in previous decades, many of which objectified women to gain more attention and sell more beer. In addition to acknowledging these questionable marketing tactics, the new campaign looks to support women in the beer industry by converting old beer ads and posters into fertiliser for hops to be used by female brewers.
Assessment.
With their tongue-in-cheek video featuring actor Ilana Glazer, our panel appreciated Miller Lite’s attempt to put past wrongs right and outright address their marketing decisions from the past. The company seems to be putting their money where their mouth is and not only acknowledging the sexist tone of these old adverts, but actually attempting to rewrite the narrative by walking viewers through the crucial role that women play in the beer-brewing process and backing up their campaign with exclusively female voices.
That said, our panel was also rather sceptical of Miller Lite digging up old ads just to pat themselves on the back for not continuing to engage in this style of advertising. Our team concluded that sexist beer adverts from the 90s haven’t exactly been a relevant topic of recent news.
The panel noted that the campaign was hardly painful for Miller Lite itself - it got to show its old ads of scantily-clad women while also distancing itself from them. The judges would have liked to see the focus of the campaign move more squarely to empowering women who work in the beer industry with case studies and support in forms slightly more impactful than a pile of dirt.
Overall, we appreciated Miller Lite’s relatively genuine attempt to apologise for previous wrongdoings and support female brewers, but we did feel that it dug up old ground (pardon the pun) purely for the sake of gaining self-serving media coverage.
Score*: 3.7
The Genuine Index Series 2 - 2023
Arsenal’s No More Red = 7.33
People Like Us Are Working = 6.7
Peugeot’s Girls Like Cars Too = -3.5
Trainline’s Waterloo takeover = 1.8
Sky's Footprint Fund = 1.6
Dove's injectable billboard = 0.16
Direct Line's spotlight on vans = 3.4
Miller Lite's old sexist ads = 3.7
* -10.0 (Total BS & Corporate Wash) - 10.0 (Totally Genuine).
Our scores are an average of individual panel members’ individual scores.