Songs for Soap writes about the new Luke Bryan/Miller Lite tie-in surrounding Luke's #1 Country hit "All My Friends Say." And from the tone of the piece it seems they don't approve of the partnership. Here's the information on the partnership.
"All My Friends Say" is a catchy single with a hooky chorus about getting drunk the night before at a frat party and having to piece together last night's wild events through the stories of one's friends. I don't necessarily agree with how Songs For Soap seeks to ascribe details about Luke's personality based solely on a few of his songs. This passage was the one that irked me:
[Luke Bryan's]"... the guy who slept through astronomy in the back of your lecture hall with his cowboy hat over his head, but he was always willing to tap the keg for you and save you from looking like a wuss in front of your girlfriend."
Say what you will about the song or even Luke's other material. Songs don't always paint the picture of the artist as a person. Luke Bryan's neither the first nor the last (nor the best) artist to address life in a drunken state, but there's no need to hammer the dude for this song.
It's just beer guys. I'll take the "All My Friends Say" tie-in over Clydesales playing football any day.
The legitimate criticism here would be of Miller Lite and its corporate parent Miller Coors. In an age of "drink responsibly" ads, an era where promoting getting drunk off of beer is taboo in advertising (isn't it amazing how with all of the beer advertising done no one is ever the least bit tipsy? I guess beer must possess magical happy qualities that make it necessary to be drunk without ever addressing it's an alcoholic beverage.), Miller Lite ties in to a song that is about nothing except getting blind drunk and blacking out. And this is no criticism of the song itself per se. It's still a fun song that would rock a party. But as a corporate brand steward, how do you let that slip by? How do you leave yourself open to the many critics of the beer industry and how it markets itself?
Yes, this is a limited promotion, but it leaves the parent company open to criticism it did not have to face. I would not be surprised to see the brand get whacked by some regulatory body or have to play PR defense against an advocacy group like MADD.
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