Revising Shakespeare: First, kill all the Marketing VPs
Back in my school days, we read Shakespeare. It was not my favorite. Reading William was hard, and it took a lot of energy to write an essay about any of his works. In my case, I accepted it as part of the liberal arts education. In reality, what made the whole thing tolerable was a young and pretty English teacher, or Miss M. She reminded some of us of the teacher Alice in Room 222.
One day, Miss M answered a question about Shakespeare's line about killing all the lawyers. She finally settled the issue by telling a bunch of high-schoolers not to take old William literally.
Over the last couple of days, I've been wondering about what old William would say about Marketing V.P.s. He might say "kill all the marketing V.P.s" It may have been his way of settling the issue.
It's been a tough year for the marketing profession.
Over at ESPN, they decided that sports fans were desperate for Trump-bashing or talking about racism between attempted passes. Doesn't everyone turn on SportsCenter for another attack on Trump or a quote from LeBron about the police?
Over at Disney, the smart ones decided that moms and dads were dying to hear references to the 1619 Project whenever Donald and Daisy were chatting on a canoe. Life is short, so why not tell the kids that mom and dad have been lying to them about their country?
It hasn't gone well for those two woke corporations, as the numbers tell us.
Enter Bud Light and the latest marketing V.P. on a mission. She decided that going woke might enhance a brand in decline.
Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the “declining” American beer brand to “young people”, while smearing her former customers as “fratty and out of touch”.
— Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) April 9, 2023
How’s that working out for you, lady? @budlight pic.twitter.com/zNYKbMnZnu
Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light's VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the "declining" American beer brand to "young people", while smearing her former customers as "fratty and out of touch".
So how do you make beer less fratty and out of touch? You hire a man on his 365th day of girlhood. I'm calling Alissa to have her select my lottery ticket numbers. To paraphrase The Beatles, Alissa is a woman who understands; Alissa is a woman who loves her brand.
So Shakespeare would have probably amended the play to something like this: "Beer sales down. Let's hire a man pretending to be a woman to make things more appealing to the young. Bad idea, and kill the marketing V.P. on your way out."
Yes, too much marketing talk and not enough knowing your customer. Woke kills another brand. Don't worry, because another marketing V.P. out there has a new one coming. Like socialism, they need to keep trying until it works.
PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos.