Seeing a recent ad for Michelob Ultra triggered a memory of their old Michelob Light ads from my childhood. In these ads, two or more people would play some sport against each other really hard, and the winner(s) gets a Michelob Light. And, naturally, they made the slogan: “Michelob Light for the Winner” into a jingle so that nobody who ever heard it would ever forget it. (Maybe that’s why they had to change the name to Michelob Ultra? Everyone made fun of it?)
The one I think everyone knows best (if they know the campaign at all) is the one featuring two young men playing squash to see who gets the Michelob Light, as if only one person is allowed to drink a beer, and there’s only one brand available to drink. And they’re trying absurdly hard to get that one beer: the only bottle of any beer in existence, apparently.
This ad always made me think of two men playing tennis, and both of them are trying hard to lose while the slogan jingle plays in the background. They hit air balls, lob out of bounds, and try to hit it into the net, but eventually one of them makes an unlucky shot than lands in bounds, and the other guy watches it bounce, gets out of the way, and it flies past him, whereupon he laughs and says: “Ha ha! You ‘win’! Now you have to drink the Michelob Light!” And the other guy breaks his tennis racket in frustration and screams: “Damn it!”
Then, as the tag, we see the “winner” trying to choke down a bottle of Michelob Light, but he gags, and the other guy says: “No, you have to chug it without stopping or else you have to drink a whole other bottle!” Meanwhile, the “loser” is drinking a good beer, like a Guinness or something.
Maybe some competitor to Michelob Ultra could make this callback joke ad.
Here are some examples of the “Michelob Light for the Winner(s)!” ad campaign from the mid 1980s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXnVtWwa4w
And while they're playing, the guys say to each other stuff like:
"You're too good for me!"
"Oh, I don't know; this might be your lucky day!"
"You can't win 'em all; I give up!"
"No, I've got to lose someday…!"
(BTW: I'm not trying to insult Michelob Light: I'm sure all light beer tastes equally bad. But their: "Michelob Light for the winner" ads were especially dumb, and I never could help making fun of them.)
And while they're playing, the guys say to each other stuff like:
"You're too good for me!"
"Oh, I don't know; this might be your lucky day!"
"You can't win 'em all; I give up!"
"No, I've got to lose someday…!"
(BTW: I'm not trying to insult Michelob Light: I'm sure all light beer tastes equally bad. But their: "Michelob Light for the winner" ads were especially dumb, and I never could help making fun of them.)
