Dirt Cheap is a local discount chain of Liquor and tobacco stores in the St. Louis metro area that serves as “the last refuge of the persecuted smoker”. Their memorable low-budget ads featuring owner Fred and the Dirt Cheap Chicken (the mascot seen in this ad) were a regular fixture on the TV airwaves growing up in the area.
To me the store seemed ubiquitous, and with taglines like “Cheap-cheap! Fun-fun!” from their mascot and slogans like “the more she drinks the better you look”, hardly adding glamor to this young adult’s impression of beer drinkers. Indeed, the store carried their own line of Dirt Cheap Beer, presumably to compete alongside St. Louis mainstays like Nattie Light and Busch beer.
In retrospect, it’s kind of a small wonder I gained a taste for craft beer at all, growing up in the macro-brew capital and consistently exposed to ads like these for Dirt Cheap.
Because A-B has spent years building its brand around nationalism and tradition, their sale to InBev last year has been especially damaging to its core identity. No amount of marketing can counteract this single fact, especially after the idea has become so ingrained over time. In some ways it might be easier to market a new beer, rather than reinvent the brand that sells America’s two top selling beers, Bud Light and Budweiser.
I was still living in St. Louis when the news broke, and since almost everyone there is related to an employee (in my case, an uncle) the reputation of a local business was at stake. By the time the sale was announced, it was Old News to me.
I feel the theme of this ad still holds true. To make a great beer takes more than its quality ingredients or branding, but the people who brew it. It takes ingenuity, attention to detail, passion, and forsight to brew tasty beverages.
In that regard craft beer has become my favorite, but every once in awhile a major brewery innovates their craft (Michelob anyone?). The beer business is complicated, but brewers take careful planning to both create the product and to market it.
I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be talking much more about A-B in particular, and Beer Ads in general, in the near future.
