Irreverence is in the Eye of the Beholder

Iconic images are used in ads all the time. Think Che, Obama, or as Copyranter points out today, the Mona Lisa. This might work as a Good Friday ad in predominantly Catholic, Spanish speaking countries.


Previously in "Jesus Likes Beer":
Jesus is Bringing You a Case of Heinies.
The Church of Heineken

Somewhere a Mexican Bartender Wants His Royalties

Who knows how it started? My guess is it was down at Rosarito Beach in Baja, back in the days when you could eat lobster, rice and beans all night and drink like a king for next to nothing. The beachside bartender stuck a lime in a Corona for some underage surfer girl who didn't like the taste of sub-par Mexican beer. She went, "OHMIGAWD! This is RAD!" and proceeded to get drunk.

Fast forward a couple decades. Corona, a beer once considered human urine by Americans is now a major player. Its brand is fun and firmly established. And now the big American breweries (Miller, Bud) have to create a lime-infused beer in a lame game of catch-up.

I'd hate to have to work on that account.

Click for Maximum Flavor

Marketers Will Tell You When to Drink

And since Cinco de Mayo is on a Monday this year, they've turned this weekend into "Cinco de Mayo Weekend." That's an extra day of beer sales! Just as Guinness wants you to celebrate "St. Patrick's Season," Corona, Dos Equis and Tecate are on the air with ads, along with Jose Cuervo, Patron and I'm sure a variety of salsa makers, urging you to party like a frat boy on Spring Break in Cancún, Mexico's most Americanized location. Or party like a Girl Gone Wild at Daytona Beach, one of Florida's skankiest beaches.

Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, observed primarily in the US, and though the beer makers would have you believe it is Mexican Independence Day, that is just a very-well marketed myth that has served to increase beer sales. It's not a holiday in Mexico. It's a reason to party in America.

Dos Quis has trotted out their "Most Interesting Man in the World" ads again, and their website is a pretty interesting bunch of discoveries based on the character. The "Most Interesting Man" reminds me somewhat of Chris Christmas Rodriguez, an overly macho character who makes you laugh as he redefines what it means to be a man.


For Corona's part, they're sticking with the beach thing, where bottles and limes are the main focus and life is a very relaxed party for two. Their website is a vertigo inducing exercise in finding the usual objects like desktop backgrounds, commercials and pictures.


Tecate, sadly, is under construction. No "interacting with the brand" here. Nobody "experiencing" Tecate. This is also the only site that is bilingual. By their placeholder pictures, one can assume Tecate favors a futbol-loving culture.

And does anyone really think that requiring a visitor to enter their age on an alcohol website will keep minors from entering an alcohol website? Time to get rid of that ridiculous custom.

So wear a silly hat, make embarrassing mariachi noises and shake your maracas while you down plenty of Mexican beer and tequila. It'd be the American thing to do.

So You Run and You Run to Catch Up With the Sun

I actually like the current Visa Signature ads featuring the "things to do while you're alive" lists. (As opposed, I suppose, to a "things to do after you're dead" list.)

Anyway, I made up my own.

More Heat Than (Available) Light

Insert your Ice Cold Beverage Ad Here

(Weepy blues guitar, with plenty of sweaty sting. Slinky, funky highhat w/ kick and snare joins in with slutty, nasty bass at about :15. Narrator is male or female, tired, nearly pissed off. )

That kind of day, when stepping out of the safety of the AC for a couple of seconds causes your hair to become wet underneath as your shirt gains weight from the soaked-up moisture, gushing from pores you never knew could sweat; when the promise of momentary cooling from an afternoon scattered shower just misses your neighborhood by a zip code; when relief is your head submerged in a not-cool-enough pool, and coming up for breath means beads of perspiration forming on your forehead as soon as your face hits the air; when as the sun is finally and slowly diving, casting light through your neighbor's sprinklers, you run and grab the camera, convinced you are seeing God's Light, when in truth you are just temporarily delusional, hallucinating from exposure; when standing over a grill in the evening to test your just-invented but never-attempted Lime & Pepper Breast of Chicken™ might be likened to fishing in a molten lava river. In midsummer. In Hell.

And... logo.
(Coca-Cola, Corona, Dasani, etc.)

Your Whole Life is a Sponsored Moment™

I was sitting at the Jetpacks Mobile WorkStation^™ when I noticed a bunch of logos staring back at me. And so, this blog post was brought to you by Yahoo!^®, Corona^®, Dell^®, Logitech^® peripherals, the Dish Network^®, Verizon^® Wireless Broadband and Kensington^® peripherals. (And Blogger^®, by Google^®.)

And none of them have paid me yet.

I guess I use them because they're good, or maybe I perceived them as quality goods and services at affordable prices when I engaged them in business, but how do I know that's true if I don't try the others? Like a fickle client leaving a decent, performing agency for another, I'm willing to ditch these brands who haven't been giving me cold, hard cash (or kickbacks & free stuff) in return for my patronage.

So, if another computer manufacturer would like to furnish a better laptop than this rode hard, put-away-wet dinosaur, get in touch. I might even be persuaded to crossover to the Mac^® side.

If Comcast^®, BrightHouse^® or another competitor of the Dish Network^® wants in here, we're open.

Kensington^® and Logitech^® competitors?

Cingular^® on the wireless? (Oh, wait. I mean AT&T^®.) And I'll go ahead and invite Sprint^® to participate in the RFP.

MSN^®? Google^®? You want a piece?

Oh, wait. Google^® provides the blog, the email, the cool maps, the relatively reliable search results, the awesome view of my house from outer space and all kinds of other goodies - for FREE. (All with a simple, clean interface. Verdict: Exempted this month) So, MSN^®, you get first shot at the beer cozy sponsorship.

Corona^®...I guess you can stick around a while longer. One month exemption.

(Oh, yeah. Nikon^® took the picture. You have 30 days from today, otherwise Canon^® gets a shot.)