Basketball fans might have noticed a new commercial from a spirits company during Thursday night’s NBA doubleheader on TNT trying to persuade them to ditch beer in favor of a popular cocktail.
Suntory-owned Jim Beam launched a new campaign this week titled “Need a Break From Beer” with a TV spot on more than 20 national networks.
It’s a new year and we could all use a break from something. Give beer a little space, drink a #JimBeamHighball pic.twitter.com/Y964HrH8OP
— Jim Beam (@JimBeam) January 5, 2021
In the commercial, a bartender asks a man at the bar if he’d like another beer “or something different.” He glances at two scruffy, bearded fellow patrons drinking beers out of stemmed tulip glasses.
“How ‘bout this super filling IPA, aged with goat’s milk?” one asks as the camera pans down to a leashed goat inside the bar that bleats on cue.
While the drink-less customer is still pondering his order, he sees a couple wearing traditional German festival attire, waving glass steins aloft. The dirndl-clad woman beckons him in an over-the-top accent to consider “a Bavarian wheat ale, with a hint of huff and puff.”
Then, another bar patron with long silver hair and a beard like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings whispers in the customer’s ear that he should try a dark beer. The competing come-ons from the three beer drinking parties repeat over and over, until the bartender breaks the din and offers the man a Beam and ginger highball.
Beam’s campaign intends to recruit beer drinkers away from malt and hops to the Jim Beam Highball.
“With the launch of ‘Need a Break From Beer,’ we’re taking a widely enjoyed cocktail that’s been trending for years and finally shining the national spotlight on it,” Beam Suntory president of brands Jessica Spence said in a press release. “We know drinkers are getting bored with beer and are looking for new alternatives. The Jim Beam Highball is incredibly easy to mix and perfect for enjoyment while at home or in bars when the time is right.”
The drink is simple: the combination of chilled Jim Beam and ginger ale over ice. In the release, Beam suggests drinkers order one “when they’re looking for a light and refreshing option instead of their next beer.”
The campaign — a shot across the bow at the beer industry, which has steadily lost market share to spirits in recent years — comes the week after the major beverage alcohol trade associations scored a major win in the permanence of the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act.
In a several yearslong show of unity, the Brewers Association, Beer Institute, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, American Distilled Spirits Alliance and others collaborated to lobby legislators and drum up public support for the bill, which permanently lowers federal excise taxes for alcoholic beverage producers and importers.
It’s not the first time a TV commercial has taken aim at craft brewers and drinkers. In 2015, Anheuser-Busch InBev raised eyebrows when it ran a spot during the SuperBowl describing its flagship Budweiser as being “brewed for drinking, not dissecting.” The ad mocked craft drinkers for sipping “peach pumpkin ale” — awkward, as a few weeks earlier, the world’s largest beer manufacturer had just announced its acquisition of Seattle-based craft brewery Elysian, which brewed Gourdgia On My Mind, an amber with pecan, peach and pumpkin.
Beam and A-B’s Budweiser brand would later collaborate in September 2019 to produce Budweiser Reserve Black Lager, aged on Jim Beam barrel staves. In 2020, dollar sales of that beer increased 10.9%, to $1.4 million, at off-premise retailers tracked by market research firm IRI.
Craft beer drinkers often dabble in spirits, so a campaign to grab their attention with a cocktail makes sense. Nearly three-quarters of craft beer drinkers also drink spirits “at least monthly” and 42% of them drink spirits “at least weekly,” according to the Brewers Association’s Craft Beer Insights Poll, which the BA commissions annually through data firms Nielsen and Harris Poll.
However, Beam’s timing is curious, as only 24% of states currently allow bars to be “completely open,” according to Nielsen CGA, the market research firm’s on-premise arm.
The year-long campaign will include several activations including “retail marketing, baseball stadium activations, consumer sampling and value-add packaging,” according to the release. Notably, the brand plans to open “Beam Gardens,” which it described as “a playful alternative to traditional beer gardens” that will offer Jim Beam Highballs on tap when and where public health conditions allow.
The move also comes after Japan’s Suntory launched All Free, a non-alcoholic beer in the U.S. last summer.