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Coors Light “Smart Tap” – image credit: MillerCoors
It appears that the Big Beer, light beer wars might never end. And now MillerCoors is introducing special beer taps powered by Bud Light negativity.
Here’s what we know…
According to Peter Frost at Behind the Beer MillerCoors has had it with Bud Light’s social media put-downs which have only escalated since Anheuser-Busch aired a provocative commercial that took direct aim at its closest competitor .
It began on Super Bowl Sunday when Bud Light returned to last year’s popular “Dilly, Dilly” medieval kingdom to accuse both Miller Lite and Coors Light of using corn syrup in their beers.
The spot’s corn syrup accusations, though not denied, drew a quick rebuttal from MillerCoors as well as from the National Corn Growers Association.
MillerCoors took to the New York Times to jump ugly with Anheuser-Busch. And MillerCoors’ CEO Gavin Hattersley got fiery about his competitor on the company’s 2018 fourth-quarter earnings call…
“Anheuser-Busch could not have handled it as a better gift if they tried harder. Our distributors are proud. They are fiercely competitive and they like nothing more than a good fight.”
“Nothing we could have done could have fired them up so much,” he said. “Our employees are just as fired up and the next few months are going to be interesting for sure.”
And things only escalated when MillerCoors pulled out of a previously planned meeting for a multimillion-dollar, “Got Milk” style advertising campaign that would result from an almost unheard of alliance between Anheuser-Busch InBev, Molson Coors, Heineken NV and Constellation Brands.
MillerCoors’ Communications Chief, told the Wall Street Journal that the planned campaign to revive the declining beer sector would be “waste of time and money…while the dominant industry leader is spending millions of dollars demonizing beer ingredients.”
And now as part of this ongoing skirmish, Coors Light will take to select bars in five cities and introduce the world’s first smart beer tap handle powered by Bud Light negativity….
MillerCoors’ activists will monitor Bud Light’s activity on social-and broadcast-media channels in real time. And every time that Bud Light takes a shot Coors Light, the smart beer tap handles will light up “signaling that each legal-age patron will get a free Coors Light.”
The campaign, which will launch New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Omaha and Las Vegas on March 21, was designed to coincide with the start of the national college basketball tournament.
And the Big Beer “corntroversy” continues…
