PBR

 After our stealth-marketing discussion Friday, I decided to go look up the article on Pabst Blue Ribbon that I had seen.  It was in the New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EFD81538F931A15755C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1) and interestingly, mentions No Logo, by Klein, as a big influence in the marketing of the “underdog product.”  Klein describes accurately, according to PBR’s marketing department, the consumer backlash against bullying, in-your-face brand marketing. It wasn’t that they didn’t want a brand—they just wanted one that wasn’t forced on them, and described their social sphere accurately (in this case, that of counter-culture, like bike messengers and skateboarders).

            So they took a “product of the people,” a cheap beer, and turned it in to a rallying cry for a social group.  I like this example because it is such a definitive rejection to the concept that consumers are mindless drones (I don’t want be a mindless drone).  The counter-culture social group didn’t have a brand to define them, so they chose one and gave it new meaning.  The industry wisely didn’t latch on to the trend and try to exploit it with the same kind of blunt marketing that scared the “new blue collar worker” away in the first place—it recognized its niche and quietly continues to play the underdog industry, even though it is doing pretty good in the cheap-beer market. 

            The presence of a phenomenon like PBR and the bike messengers presents a couple of interesting points.  First off, why does such an anti-mass culture social sphere, who would presumably be adherents to Naomi Klein and Juliet Schor’s views, adhere to a product to define themselves?  Probably they would say that their PBR mania was self-made, and that makes all the difference.  There was no market forces that encouraged them to accept this brand because it described their lifestyle—they took a once rather innocuous product and bent it to their will, so to speak.  Big Brother wasn’t involved.

            But why do they have to have a brand to define their social sphere and position anyway? Like it or not, they are advertising a product and giving their money to Big Business when they buy the beer.  Why give attention to the certain kind of cheap beer they buy?  I drink Keystone Light when I don’t want to spend very much to have a good time, but I don’t invest the brand with the kind of meaning that those in the article do. I’d rather associate myself with (do my unremunerated consumer labor for) beer that actually tastes good.

            Perhaps it’s all about communication.  Like it or not, the clothes that one wears and the drink that one drinks when you meet them at a party are the first indicators of what kind of product choices that person makes, and thus which social group that person identifies with (if any).  Meeting a bike messenger with tattoos, clothes from thrift shops, a vintage road bike, and a can of PBR in his hand projects an image of a rebel who likes to have a good time.  Perhaps some social groups have realized that, in this age of communication and increased social interaction, brands have become the new form of communicating the values of the group to an outsider.