After admitting my nerdy obsession with advertising earlier this week, I found one more marketing ploy I just had to share. This time it’s a video and it’s from the folks at Smirnoff. It’s part of a viral campaign promoting their iced tea malt beverages and I happen to think it’s hilarious. Although I’ve never had the actual drinks and can’t speak to their quality or lack thereof, this video is rather clever and whether you love it or hate it – you might feel compelled to pass it on as well.

I’m not sure how the drinks are selling but with over 4-million views on youtube, I think they can call the video a success.

How many days til the SuperBowl?

TAGS [ SMIRNOFF | SMIRNOFF RAW ICED TEA | SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS | SMIRNOFF VIDEO | RAW ICED TEA VIDEO | SMIRNOFF AD ]

I’m incredibly excited for the Superbowl this upcoming Sunday – and it’s not just my sincere love for football that’s got me jazzed. I’m a big sucker for good advertising and the "Big Game" is the place where the big names debut their best stuff. For a reported $3 million per spot, it’s gotta be good.

According to Advertising Age, Anheuser-Busch is expected to run seven spots, for a total of four minutes and 30 seconds. Rumors have it that at least three of the ads will feature the Budweiser Clydesdales, one spot will star late-night legend Conan O’Brien and six of them will be all about Bud and Bud Light with just one of them focusing on a smaller brand (likely to be Bud Light Lime or Budweiser American Ale).

To get you as geared up as I am for the beer commercials, I wanted to share these great print ads that a friend emailed to me this week. They’re for Goldstar, an Israeli brand of beer, and they’re most clever.

To gear up for the actual beer drinking, check out our best game watching stuff here.

TAGS [ BEER ADS | FUNNY BEER AD | SUPERBOWL ADS | SUPERBOWL BEER ADS | SUPER BOWL BEER ADS | ISRAELI BEER ADS | GOLDSTAR BEER | GOLDSTAR BEER ADS ]

We often hear big claims of what beer can do for us. Whether it’s with more alcohol, less calories, smoother taste, no carbs, caffeine infusion or a hint of lime, the alcohol industry is forever trying to make beer more marketable.

We also hear quite a bit about the destructive powers of beer. The disease of alcoholism, the fatal consequences of binge drinking, and driving while intoxicated are all too common topics in our newspapers and on our televisions.

Rarely do we hear about what beer has already done for us. This past July an article was published on the website RealClearPolitics.com (of all places) entitled "Beer: Is There Anything It Can’t Do?" This journalistic masterpiece delves into the vastly untold story of beer’s prominent place in the history of the civilized world. The article, authored by George Will (Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative journalist), defends the positive societal contributions of beer with facts and passion.

Will scoffs at a line published in an Investor’s Business Daily article on the InBev/Anheuser Busch merger, which asserted: "The (alcoholic beverage) industry’s continued growth, however slight, has been a surprise to those who figured that when the economy turned south, consumers would cut back on nonessential items like beer…. "

"Non what?" Will asks, before contending that without beer there would be no civilization. He goes on to cite Steven Johnson’s 2006 book, "The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World" to support his notion that the development of civilization depended on urbanization that depended on beer.

Refer to Johnson’s intro for further explanation; "The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol."

The most pure fluid available was alcohol and the most readily available alcohol was beer. Inevitably, beer became a driver of a species strengthening selection process.

To avoid dangerous water, people drank large quantities of beer. The body’s ability to respond to the intake of alcohol is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA. These genes are not evenly distributed to everyone, so many of those who could not "hold their liquor" died early and childless, from either alcohol’s toxicity or from waterborne diseases. Gene pools became dominated by the survivors (those genetically disposed to drink beer) and the rest is history.

Will concludes his article with one of my very favorite beer quotes. He writes, "Benjamin Franklin was, as usual, on to something when he said, ‘Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’ Or, less judgmentally, and for secular people who favor a wall of separation between church and tavern, beer is evidence that nature wants us to be."

Well said Will, well said.

Check out the whole article, here.

TAGS [ BEER IN CIVILIZATION | BEER IN HISTORY | HISTORY OF BEER | IMPORTANCE OF BEER | SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST ]