Truth in Beervertising: An Honest Approach to Beer Marketing

I've got to hand it to Breckenridge Brewing Company. They've created something truly special with their summer campaign for "truth in beervertising". Most craft breweries don't have large advertising budgets. Most of their marketing dollars are spent getting their beer onto the shelves, not onto your televisions and newspapers. But Breckenridge saw the value in pushing their name out to the masses, and did so in a brilliant way.

If you haven't seen the ads, check them out.

Brilliant, aren't they? Being an advertising professional., I dug into these ads a bit more. They were created by the agency Cultivator, who also represents New Belgium and Great Divide. As an advertising partner who clearly knows their stuff when it comes to craft beer, they did an excellent job with this campaign and kept it low cost. To produce the four spots, they only spent $10,000 (a modest production budget, for those unfamiliar) and one day at the brewing facility with Brewmaster and General Manager, Todd Ursy.

The true genius of these ads comes from the honesty. Every craft beer love can probably attest to a time they've rolled their eyes when a macrobrewer tries to claim their beer has a "cold flavor", or even worse, that it will make you popular, attractive, or more fun. Breckenridge concisely cuts through the crap with such delightful deadpan. For craft beer lovers, a lot of the messaging is familiar. Almost a "well, duh" moment. But for anyone who has ever checked a can to see if their beer is cold, these ads serve as a wake up call in a humorous and straightforward way.

So, kudos to Breckenridge for making the investment in TV advertisements. While the spots may be low budget, the real money is spent buying media placements. This spot ran during sports games, local news, and Sunday prime time in the Denver area. Biting the bullet and shelling out the money to get these ingenious ads probably wasn't an easy call to make. But it's time that those who haven't been exposed to truly great beer got an education on the stupid gimmicks they've been buying into. And at least in Denver and the far reaches of the internet, we've got Breckenridge to thank for that.