16683: No One Does It Like The Bull. Sort of.

 

Merrill Lynch says, “The bull has your back.” Ok, but this looks like a flashback tribute to a Schlitz Malt Liquor concept.

 

16100: Noodling Google Doodle For MLK Day 2023.

 

The Google Doodle commemorating MLK Day 2023—created by Brooklyn-based artist Richard A. Chance—shows community members crafting mural art. It should’ve been animated, depicting the characters painting over a billboard for menthol cigarettes, malt liquor, or Mickey D’s.

13289: Checking Out Annie’s Can.

The latest Popeyes commercial shows Annie the Chicken Queen holding a press conference to present her Beer Can Rip’N Chicken. Must be a slow news day in Louisiana, as a reporter insists on probing Annie about the lack of beer in her culinary creation. At least he didn’t ask if she used malt liquor.

10667: For Coffee Over-Achievers.

Hills Bros. Overdrive has 20 percent more caffeine per cup. Which sorta makes it the malt liquor of coffee.

10343: Working Hard For Smirnoff Malt Drinks.

This Smirnoff Premium Malt Drinks commercial features the new hardest-working man in Black advertising—because a malt beverage calls for a Black drinker, of course.

9025: Pharrell Williams Is Serving Drinks.

Add Pharrell Williams to the hip hop artists hawking booze. Snoop Dogg has Colt 45 Blast, Diddy does Cîroc Vodka, Jay-Z handled Budweiser Select—and the list goes on. Williams’ drink, called Qream, targets women. The artist declared, “Qream was created for contemporary women who work hard and want to relax with friends at the end of the day. I want them to reward themselves deliciously. Women make up half the population and Qream is about celebrating that power.” Works every time.

Here’s the news story from NME:

Pharrell Williams launches ‘women’s only’ alcoholic drink

The N.E.R.D man announces ‘Qream’

Producer and N.E.R.D man Pharrell Williams has launched an alcoholic drink just for women.

The drink, called Qream, is being launched in conjunction with drinks giant Diageo. As well as developing the cream liqueur’s flavour, the producer is said to be designing the bottle along with having a hand in marketing and advertising.



He told Allhiphop:

“Qream was created for contemporary women who work hard and want to relax with friends at the end of the day. I want them to reward themselves deliciously. Women make up half the population and Qream is about celebrating that power. To work with Diageo in bringing something original like Qream and the notion of delicious living to market has been a thrill.”

The drink is set to come in two flavours; Strawberry Qream and Peach Qream. Diageo’s Director of Liqueurs Marketing, Anna MacDonald said: “Williams’ ability to interpret and deliver memorable experiences has the potential to allow Qream to become synonymous with women celebrating life with style, class and quality.”



The news comes after Elbow announced that they are currently brewing their own real ale.

8952: Drinking And Dining.

Would you like some firewater with that MultiCultClassics Monologue?

• More and more fast feeders are adding booze to the restaurant menu, which of course leads to criticism. “Fast food plus alcohol equals fast drunks, “ said an official at an alcohol industry watchdog group. “You don’t want someone downing a quick beer, then getting into their cars and driving off. It’s a delicate balance of risk and reward.” Look for the KFC Bucket & Keg soon.

• A new study found that people who drink diet sodas experience dangerously bloated waistlines and might inflate blood-sugar levels. See, all the fast food fans should simply opt for booze.

8739: Pabst Not Having A Blast.

The Boombox reported that Pabst Brewing Company is under fire for its new Colt 45 Blast being hawked by Snoop Dogg. Shocking. So far, attorney generals in 17 states are asking that the malt liquor manufacturer reduce the alcohol content of the drink. Reduce the alcohol content? Do these guys understand the basic concept behind malt liquor?

Regardless, Pabst Brewing Company is displaying its cultural cluelessness—both in having created the product and in reacting to the protests. “It’s not like our distributors are putting it in the soda section, and these are clearly designated as an alcoholic product,” insisted Pabst owner Daren Metropoulos. “We’re not going to be showing up and selling this at schools or anything like that.” Note to Metropoulos: Being sarcastic in this scenario makes you look like an insensitive racist. Just saying.

ATTORNEY GENERALS CONDEMN SNOOP DOGG’S COLT 45 DRINK

By Theo Bark

Snoop Dogg is once again under fire for Blast by Colt 45, a new alcoholic beverage he endorses.

According to reports, the attorney generals in 17 states are asking that parent company Pabst Brewing Company reduce the alcohol content of the drink, which they claim promotes misuse by underage drinkers, and binge drinking, due to its colorful packaging and endorsement by Snoop.

“Alcohol abuse among young people is a serious and alarming epidemic,” explained Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. “A product like this only serves to glamorize alcohol abuse and promote binge drinking, threatening the safety of those consuming it.”

Blast has been referred to as a “binge-in-a-can” by Madigan’s office, and compared to similarly controversial caffeine and malt liquor drink Four Loko.

Available in a variety of fruit flavors, Blast contains 12 percent alcohol and is sold in a 23.5 ounce can with eye-catching labels said to look like bubble gum wrappers. Snoop has also been criticized by “alcohol industry watchdog” the Marin Institute for his endorsement of the drink.

“It’s not like our distributors are putting it in the soda section, and these are clearly designated as an alcoholic product,” Pabst owner Daren Metropoulos said, defending his new brand. “We’re not going to be showing up and selling this at schools or anything like that.”

Snoop has yet to comment on the latest round of criticism.

8719: Critics Blast Blast By Colt 45.

From The New York Times…

A Line of Brews Draws a Star Endorser, and Critics

By Andrew Adam Newman

SINCE the 1980s, the actor Billy Dee Williams has appeared intermittently in advertising for Colt 45 malt liquor, often with a beautiful woman on his arm and accompanied by the slogan, “Works every time.” Now, to celebrate the introduction of a new product, Blast by Colt 45, a potent fruit-flavored beverage, the brand has a new pitchman, the rapper Snoop Dogg.

In a promotional video on YouTube, Snoop Dogg, a white fur coat over his shoulders and surrounded by models in skimpy dresses, poses for the photographer Estevan Oriol while holding cans of Blast and the original Colt 45. The photos will be used for promotional purposes, like making 7-foot cardboard cutouts featuring the rapper for in-store displays, and for delivery truck decals.

Blast initially is focusing on “viral campaigns with Twitter, Facebook and blogs,” said Evan Metropoulos, who with his brother, Daren, runs Colt 45 as an owner of the Pabst Brewing Company, the brand’s parent company. Pabst was bought in 2010 by Metropoulos & Company, an investment firm started by their father, Dean.

Snoop Dogg has mentioned Blast repeatedly on Facebook, where he has more than eight million followers, and on Twitter, where he has more than 3.1 million. In “Boom,” a single on his new album, “Doggumentary,” he mentions Colt 45 in the lyrics.

“That’s just him being a true partner and saying I’m not just an endorser,” said Daren Metropoulos. “Whether he’s putting it in his songs or having his posse drinking it, it’s part of his lifestyle.”

Available in four flavors — grape, raspberry watermelon, blueberry pomegranate and strawberry lemonade — Blast joins the rapidly growing category of sweetened alcoholic beverages that go by many names, including flavored malt beverages and progressive adult beverages.

But critics, who believe the soda-like flavors and colorful labels appeal to underage drinkers, have their own term: alcopops.

“We have always considered them cocktails on training wheels,” said Michael J. Scippa, public affairs director of the Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog. “It’s a way to bridge young consumers’ fondness for juices and sodas to alcohol.”

The group, which had criticized caffeinated alcoholic brands including Four Loko before they were required by the Food and Drug Administration to remove caffeine from their formulas recently, started an online petition opposing Blast, which in two weeks has been signed by about 1,000 people.

Like Four Loko, Blast is 12 percent alcohol by volume, more than twice most major beer brands, and is sold in 23.5-ounce cans, meaning drinking one (suggested retail price: $2.49) is the equivalent alcohol intake of more than four 12-ounce bottles of beer.

While most alcohol brands follow industry guidelines to advertise only in media outlets where no more than 30 percent of their audience is under 21, Mr. Scippa said that social networks like Facebook and Twitter “are for the most part unrestricted.” As for Snoop Dogg promoting Blast through those networks, and on YouTube, Mr. Scippa said that a “huge segment” of his fans were underage.

Tom Burrell, a former advertising executive and author of “Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority,” faulted the company for introducing Blast under the umbrella of Colt 45 and hiring the rapper.

“What is happening here is an obvious attempt to foist this stuff on young African-American men,” Mr. Burrell said. “Colt 45 has invested in the black consumer market for years, and if they weren’t looking for an African-American audience they wouldn’t be using Snoop Dogg.”

In a survey of malt liquor drinkers by Mintel, the market research firm, Colt 45 was the most popular over all, with 25 percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks drinking it. The second and third most popular brands found more favor among whites, with 25 percent drinking Mickey’s compared with 16 percent of blacks, and 22 percent drinking Olde English 800 compared with 17 percent of blacks.

Robert Jackson, a member of the New York City Council, wrote a letter in March to the state liquor board requesting that restrictions be imposed on Blast.

“Blast comes in very colorful cans and bottles and clearly is marketed to kids, just like Four Loko,” said Martin Collins, an aide to Mr. Jackson.

The flavored malt beverage category totaled $967.7 million for the 52 weeks that ended March 20, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the prior year, according to the SymphonyIRI Group, the market data firm whose totals do not include Wal-Mart or liquor stores. (Like beer, the beverages are sold largely in supermarkets and convenience stores.)

The Mike’s Hard Lemonade Company, with other flavors including limeade, leads the category with a 37.1 percent share, followed by Smirnoff Ice varieties, with a 22.7 percent share.

Fruit-flavored alcohol finds more favor with female drinkers, with 62 percent liking it compared with 48 percent of men, according to Mintel. As for age preferences, Mintel polled only legal imbibers, finding the drinks to be most popular among those 21 to 24, with 73 percent approving, and popularity waning steadily with age: 39 percent of those 55 to 64 liked the beverages, and 26 percent of those over 65.

According to American Medical Association findings, 82 percent of teenage girls who have tried the beverages prefer them to beer or other alcoholic drinks, while one-third incorrectly believe they contain less alcohol than beer.

Evan Metropoulos said Blast was formulated partly to appeal to the palates of women, who “wanted an alternative to lager and beer flavors,” and that seven-ounce bottles, sold in six-packs for about $7, will appeal to women more than 23.5-ounce cans, and reflects a commitment to provide smaller sizes to encourage moderation.

The company expects Blast to appeal primarily to consumers in their late 20s or early 30s, he said.

“All we were doing was putting together flavors that were appealing to people that definitely are over the legal age,” said Evan Metropoulos, responding to criticism of Blast. “We’re going to do our very best to hammer home the message of responsible drinking.”

“It’s not like our distributors are putting it in the soda section, and these are clearly designated as an alcoholic product,” added Daren Metropoulos. “We’re not going to be showing up and selling this at schools or anything like that.”

Correction: April 19, 2011
Because of an editing error, the headline on a capsule summary of the Advertising column on Monday, about new promotional videos starring the rapper Snoop Dogg, described incorrectly the product being promoted, Blast by Colt 45. Blast is a fruit-flavored malt beverage; it is not a beer.

8673: Colt 45 Blast Webcast Is A Blast.

No, it’s not an early April Fools’ Day gag. This webcast video features the Colt 45 Blast product that Snoop Dogg will be hawking. It’s a fascinating peek at White marketers tapping Black culture.

Hat tip to Hadji Williams.

8635: Weekend Shots.

Hit by the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Wyclef Jean insists he was shot in the hand while campaigning in Haiti for presidential candidate Michel Martelly. But local police claim he was injured by glass. In addition to being denied the opportunity to run for president of Haiti, the recording artist is ineligible to be a gunshot victim as well.

• Snoop Dogg will team up with Colt 45 to launch a new label called Blast by Colt 45, containing fruit flavors and twice the alcohol level of original Colt 45. It works every time—in half the time.

7606: Billy Dee Birthday.

Let’s raise a cold Colt 45 to salute Billy Dee Williams’ birthday.

6535: Jerks Every Time.

Where the hell does an actual craigslist ad like this come from? Yo, filmmakers, try calling Billy Dee.

In need of empty 40oz malt liquor bottles (North-Side)

Reply to: gigs-cbzyz-1070491368@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-03-11, 2:13PM CDT

Hello

We are shooting a short film and we are in need of two empty 40oz bottles of beer to use as props.

We will need them for the weekend of April 4th.

Thank you

5039: Works—And Offends—Every Time.

AdAge.com reported on new attempts to sell Colt 45 malt liquor to a young audience. It should be interesting to see the ultimate public responses. On the one hand, malt liquor gained notoriety when targeting low-income minorities—so expect condemnation from community activist groups. However, the true audience has always included young adults, particularly college students. Malt liquor continues to be a cheap, high-octane beverage. But this new campaign integrates comic-book style art, opening the door to accusations of deliberately appealing to under-age drinkers. The brown bag pushes the negative stereotypes associated with urban dwellers, which will undoubtedly fuel protests too. Looks like a no-win scenario for the advertiser and agency.

Challenge: Make Malt Liquor Look Good on Paper
Pabst Uses Icon From Controversial Brand’s Past to Reposition It as Edgy to New Generation of Drinkers

By Jeremy Mullman

CHICAGO -- Talk about a marketing conundrum: Revive Colt 45 malt liquor -- once seen as an exploitative product that preyed on the urban poor -- as an edgy choice for young hipsters.

But Pabst Brewing Co. is trying to do just that, with a campaign from Seattle boutique Cole & Weber. The push uses outdoor, digital and print ads to spread what it calls “The Tales of Colt 45,” graphic-novel-type strips that show young drinkers enjoying alcohol-fueled adventures. And in what might well elicit a wince from those familiar with the brand's history, all the creative appears to be drawn on brown paper bags.

“The brown bag was really the canvas these adventures write themselves on,” said Todd Grant, Cole & Weber’s executive creative director. “We’ve all had those cult adventures, and it’s fun to tell the tales.”

Legal pushback
Of course, the image of malt liquor being carted around in brown bags isn’t universally viewed as benign and fun. Activists and a congressman in Philadelphia successfully pushed for Colt 45 wraps to be taken off a pair of city buses last year, saying the marketing of malt liquor was irresponsible given the rising crime rate there.

“Given our rising epidemic of violence, your promotion of especially dangerous malt liquor is extraordinarily counterproductive,” Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.) said at the time. “Through these ads, [the transportation authority] is effectively condoning malt-liquor sales.”

In its late-1980s heyday, when sales topped 2 million barrels annually, Colt 45 was hardly bashful about marketing in poor neighborhoods, where the image of actor Billy Dee Williams and the slogan “Works every time” were often ubiquitous on billboards. Colt 45 contains 6.1% alcohol, making it boozier than most beers (Budweiser, for example, is 5%).

“We really wanted it to be a brand-new thing,” Mr. Grant said. “Whatever baggage they did have … doesn’t exist anymore.”

Neither, it seems, do a lot of the brand’s consumers. Sales have fallen by more than half since the late 1980s, and most of the remaining drinkers are aging.

Graphic libations
To appeal to younger drinkers, Cole & Weber tapped graphic novelist Jim Mahfood (author of the volume “Classic 40 Ounce: Tales From the Brown Bag” and a regular contributor to alternative newsweeklies) to create a series of scenes and stories of young adults enjoying themselves with Colt 45. Most of the creative shows 20-somethings flaunting their oversize cans in social settings such as rooftop parties and dance clubs.

The brand’s ad budget is centered on the New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles markets, although it also made national print buys in magazines such as Vice, Fader and Juxtapose.

Mr. Williams is nowhere to be found (Mr. Grant said unsuccessful overtures were made to have him make a cameo in one of the strips), but his signature “Works every time” slogan does appear in most of the work, which some experts said could be problematic. “Anytime you call attention to the [alcoholic] strength of a brand, you’re taking a risk,” said Benj Steinman, editor and publisher of the newsletter Beer Marketer’s Insights. Federal regulations prohibit the use of strength as a selling point for alcoholic beverages.