I recently received an email from GlobalBankingMegaCorp congratulating me on my “new” credit limit increase — said increase no doubt being fueled by the fact that I haven’t charged anything on their poxy card for over six months and have instead been paying down the balance.
Then, lower down, there was this lovely little incentive to spend more with them (note the sting in the tail):
LOL they must think I was born yesterday.
Here’s an interesting take on the whole Bud Light debacle:
“When the company was bought over by InBev, a lot of things changed [from] when it was owned by Anheuser-Busch. You know, it’s an American brand,” the whistleblower remarked.
He explained that the company previously offered many benefits prior to its purchase by InBev. Through the fall in sales for the Bud Light brand, the former employee stated, the corporation could restructure both employee benefits and its company standards through layoffs and renegotiating contracts.
“Bud Light has been failing for many years. We’ve talked about that for many years. The numbers of just, you know, little by little deteriorated. And it feels like they said, ‘Let’s put this nail in the coffin,’” he said. “Now we have a lot of layoffs, a lot of loss in production. It would be easy for them to restructure, let’s say, pay or contracts.”
“It’s too obvious that they wouldn’t just mistakenly do this and not expect these repercussions. Anybody could tell you what was going to happen,” he commented.
Um, maybe. Okay, I’m not so sure about that. In the first place, when it comes to giant corporations, never ascribe to malice what can also be ascribed to stupidity. Sometimes it happens, but that ain’t the way to bet.
The most telling rebuttal to this assertion is quite simple. Regardless of whether Bud Light was in decline, or not, it was still the best-selling beer brand in the United States. And yes, while A-B might have stood to gain from restructuring salary scales or employment contracts, I hardly think that those savings would equate to anything like the amount of money that’s been lost (and will continue to be lost) from their plummeting sales and the equally-dismal drop in their share price. If some toad in Finance suggested this, he needs to be castrated, in the corporate sense, because if even someone like me can see this, then he’s truly stupid.
Regardless of everything else, you just don’t willfully destroy your #1 brand, especially when it’s as large a brand as Bud Light. The sums of money are just too vast, the possible repercussions too dreadful because they’re unknown — the ramifications could see A-B split up as a company into separate operating companies (Michelob, Busch, etc.) and the loss of economies which stem from shared brands would cripple all of them. They’d become no different from a bunch of craft brands — and regardless of what anyone thinks, A-B brands are about as far from craft beers, in both quality and consumer regard, as one could get.
No, the whole thing is just way too Machiavellian and too complex — and trust me, it’s not like InBev is staffed with people of the strategic vision of, say, the German General Staff of WWII, even. They’re a bunch of Belgian and American bureaucrats, a breed not known for their perspicacity. And let’s be honest, the Belgies are among the wokest people on the planet, so I’m more likely to ascribe all this bullshit to simple corporate vanity.
Of course, if I’m wrong and this really was just part of some diabolical Master Plan, I hope it all falls apart and the whole A-B/InBev house comes crashing down. The world will survive and who knows, we might just end up with a few decent beers out of the wreckage.
I see that following their woke cock-up (is there any other kind?) last week (my commentary here), Heckler & Koch have reversed course faster than Clint Eastwood finding out his date is a trannie:
The next day, Heckler & Koch revealed a colossal corporate change of heart. It deleted the tweets and seemed to suggest someone may have been fired.
Didn’t help, judging from the responses:
- “I’d expect nothing less from the brand that will never compromise.
- “Finally, a company that understands the toxicity of engaging in identity politics.”
- “A fully-armed and bikini-clad apology would smooth things.”
- “Someone got fired!”
- “No, not good enough. Send me a free gun.”
- “I’m so sick of the PC crap… Folks have enough to deal with without having to worry about offending some thin-skin’s sensibilities.”
- “This almost does it. Need an ad with a good-looking woman in a bikini…with guns, and a beer…”
- “Nope, I’m still upset! I will be requiring a VP9 and an HK45 as reparations before my feelings are unhurt.”
Companies need to keep tighter control on their employees’ social media, methinks — and especially if said employees have access to the corporation’s social media.
Beyond that, HK got reminded of something like a gun-safety lesson: Don’t point your tweet at anything — including your marketshare — that you aren’t willing to destroy.
Yup.
In the meantime, here’s a gun bunny to make us all happy again:
I know, she’s not carrying one of H&K’s overpriced guns, but that just shows her good sense (which is more than they have).
Here’s one that made me chuckle:
Gunmaker Heckler & Koch tweeted agreement Tuesday with Miller Lite’s woke campaign against using sexy women — “bunnies” — to sell products, then doubled down in a second tweet, describing ad campaigns that objectify women as “trash marketing.”
…
On Tuesday, Heckler & Koch doubled down, responding to accusations that they have become “woke” by giving a detailed explanation of their opposition of “objectifying women” in selling guns:
Wow- woke? Allow me to translate: objectifying women was never a good marketing strategy. In the firearms industry, that was a prominent strategy up until recently. Many industries have done that (including beer corps).
As an actual woman typing this, I’ll use more words for you to comprehend: using bunnies to sell products is trash marketing. Supporting women by not doing that is good.
Of course, it’s easy to say all that bullshit when your target market isn’t men buying guns for their womenfolk (unlike light beer). If it was, H&K (who, as Larry Correia reminds us, think we all suck anyway) would paint bikini models on the oversized grips of their overpriced guns.
And by the way — and this applies to all gun companies — your job is not to “support women” by uttering platitudes like the above. Your job is to support women by making guns that they can actually shoot. (Last time I looked, H&K is kinda lean in that product description.)
As with light beer, I can’t boycott H&K products because I’ve never owned one in the first place — mostly because of H&K’s Ferrari-like premium prices. (Only unlike Ferrari, whose cars are arguably worth the $$$$, H&K guns aren’t.)
Anyway, it’s all bullshit. Manufacturers have been using beautiful women to sell their products ever since Mrs. Aarg preferred Mrs. Thaarg’s leopardskin loincloth. That’s not going to change, ever.
Bloody fools.
I got triggered by this (link):
A couple months back I needed a cooler trunk for a road trip — not a soft-sided freezer bag, but the kind of thing one takes on camping, hunting or fishing trips. I haven’t had to buy one of these things in yonks, so I was completely out of touch with the whole thing, but I thought I’d just get a Coleman because I sort of know the brand and I’ve had good experiences with it in the past. Also, I needed something in the 50-60-quart size.
So off I went to Academy because they’re located next door to my next stop, the Kroger which in turn is next door to my sooper-seekrit mailbox place. (Efficient, that’s me.)
No Coleman. Okay, no sweat; here’s Igloo:
…not bad, but a little pricey, and I want a trunk, not a box.
Here’s Magellan, which is Academy’s sorta-house brand, made (as they all are) in China:
…wait, WTF? $200 for a smaller cooler? Any more Igloos?
…FFS, two hundred and fifty dollars for a fucking cooler with wheels? Does it come with independent suspension and power steering?
But it got worse, oh yes it did. Try this proud Yeti number:
…ummmmm
Okay, I said I’m out of touch with this category, but has there been some massive gain in static refrigeration technology that I haven’t heard about? “Roadie”? Does it come with someone to drag the thing around?
Had I wandered into REI, Whole Foods or a Ferrari dealership by mistake?
What premium-priced hell is this, where people pay this kind of money for what is, after all, a throwaway product that lasts a couple of years before the seals rot and you have to get another one?
Somebody ‘splain this to me, please. I’m clearly just ignorant.
By the way: I ended up getting two styrofoam coolers from 7-Eleven for $15 apiece, just put up with the styro-squeaking for the trip, then tossed them when I got home. Job done.
As someone who has never drunk more than a mouthful of “light” beer (true story: I tasted a Lite when I first arrived here, didn’t finish the drink, and never touched another of the type ever again), the brouhaha surrounding Bud Light’s marketing decision to elevate some girlyboy to be the brand spokesman has left me totally unmoved — well, apart from bursting out in derisive laughter, that is.
I don’t have a sexy MBA from some elite academic institution, so I’m hardly one to judge this latest example of woke stupidity [redundancy alert]. Nevertheless, here are some core principles I’ve discovered along the way, in a career that spanned over three decades of marketing and advertising.
Marketing Rule #1: You never neglect (never mind alienate) your existing customer base. They are the ones who pay your salaries and keep your production lines moving.
Marketing Rule #2: Once your brand is established, you never chase after “new” customers, but concentrate on getting your existing customers to use your product more. This is both intuitive and cost-effective, except perhaps to an inexperienced person with a sexy MBA from some elite academic institution.
Marketing Rule #3: You never make radical changes to your marketing or advertising strategy, especially when it comes into direct conflict with the philosophy of the first two rules.
Marketing Rule #4: You never let the latest “thing” drive changes to your marketing strategy, especially if that latest “thing” conflicts directly with your brand’s core principle (Unique Selling Proposition, ethos, whatever) and customer base.
And for senior management: if anyone in your marketing structure — executives, ad agency, promotion company, whatever — suggests anything that flies in the face of the above four principles, fire them immediately before they get to make those changes.
Understand that they’re not being fired for making a mistake. They’re being fired for deliberately ignoring the canon of the marketplace.