Beer companies often use sex to sell their beers, but Michelob Ultra is reinventing the beer commercial by advertising something else millennials crave: health.
The company’s Super Bowl commercial for its organic Pure Gold beer has all the trendy elements. It features up-and-coming celebrity Zoe Kravitz wearing a sexy tropical sarong. She’s sitting on a wooden platform built into naturally pristine mountains overlooking water. And she’s whispering into the microphone to mimic the autonomous sensory meridian response techniques made popular on YouTube (some viewers claim ASMR gives them a tingling sensation). This is “beer in its organic form.”
Michelob obviously has its eyes set on millennials. Beer companies are struggling as younger people ditch them for wine and hard liquors. To top it off, alcohol consumption has plummeted for the third year in a row, with most of the decline coming from lagging beer sales. So the large brewing companies have to reinvent themselves.
Because millennials desire healthy food and are concerned about the environment, these companies are happy to woo us. Michelob’s solution is a beer made from organic grains. Azania Andrews, vice president of Michelob Ultra, admitted that young, health-conscious professionals are their target. Smirnoff and Ketel One made a similar move when they started advertising their products as non-GMO. These companies know young people are willing to spend more to get what we want.
But sadly, we millennials aren’t getting what we want by purchasing these labels.
The organic label has gained popularity but not for what it really stands for. The National Organic Program is regulated by the Department of Agriculture’s marketing branch. The program dictates production methods. But those methods aren’t necessarily better for the environment, namely because they often require more resources to produce less food. Despite popular belief, organic farmers can, and do, use pesticides.
Neither is organic produce any safer, healthier, or more nutritious. Numerous scientific studies have found that conventionally grown produce is just as healthy as organic options, and they generally cost a lot less.
What about non-GMO? Here, again, the label fails to live up to the hype. Every credible scientific study performed over the last 25 years confirms that genetically modified crops are safe for both humans and the environment. Scientific and regulatory organizations such as the National Academies of Science and the American Medical Association agree, as do the Food and Drug Administration, USDA, and Environmental Protection Agency under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
So that means Michelob’s Pure Gold organic beer is just beer. And Smirnoff and Ketel One’s non-GMO vodka is just vodka. There’s nothing special about it.
But companies and their marketing departments continue to carefully craft campaigns giving a false impression to consumers. They continue to do so despite brazenly flouting regulations to the contrary. The FDA has ruled that claims suggesting organic or GMO-free products are safer, healthier, or more environmentally sustainable than the alternatives are inherently misleading.
Yet FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and the Trump administration stand by as the deception continues. Why? Their silence only allows the problem to get worse. It bolsters the companies who are willing to exploit their nonenforcement. Consumers pay the price. For now, millennials and everyone else is left to wade through misleading television commercials, even during the Super Bowl. Some of them might actually believe that the Pure Ultra beer is healthy for them.
This is like the Fyre Festival of Super Bowl ads: a slick, star-studded presentation promising millennials an unforgettable experience, but ultimately a shameless con meant to separate them from their money. Michelob’s Pure Gold organic beer isn’t healthier than any other beer or even good for a consumer in the first place. It isn’t going to save the environment. Let’s hope the tingling sensation from the ASMR was worth sitting through the commercial.
Amanda Zaluckyj (@farmdaughterusa) is a millennial attorney who blogs at The Farmer’s Daughter USA. Her family farms corn and soybeans in southwest Michigan.
