Wink Wink, Chill Chill
(or, some hifalutin' beer analysis)
Once upon a time it was Miller Time. But that was a simpler time. Today's ads are constructed with multiple levels. For instance, what are we to make of Miller's current series of ads which claim that opening a bottle of beer lowers the surrounding temperature? ("Get out of the old, get into the cold.")
Sometimes it even starts snowing when a bottle of beer is opened. This surrealism is amplified with use of full-blown hallucinations, such as neon signs come to life, movie monsters by the pool, ordinary people walking into tv sets and animated clothes lines.
The path to this use of illusion may be reached via the following "reasoning": it's summertime, dude. Lots of guys enjoy drinking cold beverages to cool off, especially in climates outside of mild Seattle. Miller is having fun by taking literally the phrase "having a cool one".
Realizing this is fantasy, Miller goes with it. Hey -- if you can invent a fun-filled, compelling fantasy, and include a hero with a bottle of beer, Miller wants to hear from you! The sky is the limit, and it's a digital sky.
Another common element is pretty girls, often flirting with the beer-hoisting hero. This is an old theme in beer commercials -- drinking beer wins girls. This idea, too, is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
People go to bars for socializing and good times, and to meet people, as well as drink. Alcohol acts as social lubricant, loosening tongues and inhibitions, so obvious it hardly needs pointing out. For lots of people, meeting someone in a bar and going home with them is a pretty successful evening. "Beer gets you girls" is concise stylization for tv.
A more subtle ornamentation in the Miller ads is how the hero opens his beer bottle with a casual flip of the thumb. Cool move. Just try it sometime. If I met a guy who did that...reckon I'd hang around too.
by Frank Brown, 6/25/94