Calling BS on PBR
July 28, 2008 at 11:03 am by Andisheh Nouraee in Not-lantaIn less than a decade, Pabst Blue Ribbon has gone from dying, old brand, to hipster dive bar icon.
In addition to being cheap, PBR is popular because the brand connotes an anti-corporate , anti-establishment ethos.
To its fans, PBR is the cool antithesis of Budweiser. Bud spent $1.35 billion last year begging Americans to drink its beer. PBR is a little company embraced by savvy young people who reject and resent being targeted by cheesy ad campaigns. PBR’s popularity is a small triumph for authenticity over marketing.
Or not.
In his new book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, author Rob Walker explains that PBR’s status as an unmarketed beer is the result of, you guessed it, clever marketing.
From yesterday’s New York Times review of Buying In written by Farhad Manjoo:
Like “some kind of small-scale National Endowment for the Arts for young American outsider culture,” Pabst paid the bills at bike messenger contests, skateboarder movie screenings, and art and indie publishing get-togethers. At each of these events, it kept its logo obscure, its corporate goal to “always look and act the underdog,” to be seen as a beer of “social protest,” a “fellow dissenter” against mainstream mores.
Pabst’s campaign was designed to push beer without appearing to push it.
As for the actual beer — it turns out Pabst doesn’t even brew any.
In reality, Pabst Blue Ribbon’s anticapitalist ethos is, as Walker puts it, “a sham.” The company long ago closed its Milwaukee brewery and now outsources its operations to Miller. Its entire corporate staff is devoted to marketing and sales, not brewing. “You really couldn’t do much worse in picking a symbol of resistance to phony branding,” Walker writes.
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July 28th, 2008 at 11:16 am
They also sponsor NPR. Which I find a little weird.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Sponsor?
NPR is too classy to have sponsors!
It has underwriters, dammit!
I want an underwriter.
By the way, all this PBR talk has inspired the adbots to put ads on this page for PBR knickknacks for sale on eBay.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
So how shitty does the beer have to taste before it is consdoered cool or cutting edge?
I thinkit hilarious how all the hipsters and their underground code of cool is just more BS.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I used to like the taste of PBR. But after read this, I don’t.
I’ll now switch to Blatz.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
O’Doul’s is as edgy as it gets, gents.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Meh, I drink PBR ’cause it’s cheap and I’m unemployed; and to taste bad, PBR would have to taste like *something*. It ranks only a few organic molecules above Natty Light in terms of flavor, so how can it possibly taste bad, less’n ya think soda water tastes bad.
As for its marketing through sponsorships…I’ve noticed PBR branding on giveaways and refreshments at such hipster events as roller derby and whatnot, and didn’t think it any different than any other corporate sponsorship. Kudos to PBR for sponsoring bike races and roller derby and artsy crap, instead of sending scantily-clad cleavage-enhanced PBR Girls into our bars to cajole us into drinking their new lime-mango-pomegranate-chelada-cocktail-spritzer like some other brands.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I think Dennis Hopper said it best in Blue Velvet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snhiofL2Rh4
July 28th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Gentlemen, it’s just beer. The colder it is, the easier it is to drink, and at $4.99 for a sixer of tall boys, who’s complaining?
Anyway, You would never hear a country song called “Redneck, White Socks, and trendy microbrewed beer”.
July 28th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Bring back Billy Beer! Within weeks it would be the new nectar of the hipster.
As Homer S. said after taking a gulp: “We elected the wrong Carter.”
July 28th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
“Anyway, You would never hear a country song called “Redneck, White Socks, and trendy microbrewed beer”.
That’s a damned good point.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Interesting… I’m linking to this on my marketing blog! Thanks for the investigative reporting!