Friday, January 8th

Pass The Dip

It’s that time of year again. No, not the holidays – it’s “Bowl Week”, followed by the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl. I love sports and I love football. But I think I’m getting tired of all the beer commercials.

While sitting here, watching the third bowl game of the day, I realized how much importance is put on alcohol in our society. Every third commercial is for some type of alcohol. In the old days, only beer was advertised.

Today I saw an ad for vodka, of all things, featuring Puff Daddy, or whatever his name is these days. He was advertising his own line of vodka, Ciroc, “an ultra-premium, smooth vodka”. The use of his image as a selling tool by the distributor is a blatant attempt to bring vodka to his fans, young, black, men and women.

There were a few beer commercials on, and they, too, featured young men and women (although, mostly white), and were marketing the younger audience. The bars in which the commercials were shot, though, were not filled with the kinds of people who hang out in bars around here. The people in the bars in the commercials were good looking, energetic, youthful, and fun. The drinkers I know are none of those.

Every year on Super Bowl Sunday, the newest and best beer commercials are launched. In the past they have featured frogs and dogs and horses and people with catch-phrases that we could all repeat the next day at work. Although these ads now all say, “Drink responsibly” (whatever that means), they do not feature realistic depictions of what real drinkers look like. Real drinkers who are drunk and unruly, passing out or puking, women who become floozy, men who become violent. I guess if you drink responsibly, you will always be good looking.

Getting the word out: