A Short Series of Short Beer Ads

The 15-second beer is here. That’s not how long you drink it. It’s how long you think it.

But starting next month, Miller Brewing Co. and its ad agency Backer & Spielvogel will try to pack more punch into some 15-second commercials by turning them into parts of a continuing series. In the past, the short time frame has forced most advertisers to use 15-second spots purely for product name identification.

But a pair of offbeat commercials for Miller Lite are supposed to be aired within 15 minutes of each other during the same show. This is something ad agency executives call “bookend� ads. The first ad sets up the second, but each works separately, as well.

Miller Lite’s gimmick is a follow-up to the same “tastes great . . . less filling� campaign it has used since it hit the market 13 years ago. Now, after filming 130 different commercials, it has figured out a way to tell a continuing story in an even shorter time frame. The humor that has traditionally required 60-second or 30-second spots has been whittled down to 15.

“We’re not afraid of 15-second commercials,� said Carl Spielvogel, chairman and chief executive of New York-based Backer & Spielvogel. “Rather than being hamstrung by them, we’ve decided to embrace them.�

Few agencies have taken that attitude. In fact, most agency executives quietly say that were it not for client pressure, they would prefer to junk these “hit-and-run ads� entirely. The ads have gained in popularity in the last few years with the rise in network TV costs. Although these ads do help cut costs, they can be creative nightmares for agencies.

Now, Backer & Spielvogel is trying to have 15 seconds of fun.

In the first commercial, former Green Bay Packer linebacker Ray Nitschke sits with friends at a bar who all agree that they drink Miller Lite because it tastes great. “It’s fun drinking with guys just like me,� he says. The camera pans to show a bar full of balding and bespectacled Nitschke look-alikes.

In the next spot, which would appear about 15 minutes later, former Milwaukee Buck center Bob Lanier is seated in that same bar where Nitschke had been seen earlier. Lanier says he drinks Miller Lite because it is less filling. When voices in the bar agree with him, Lanier says, “Gee, it’s nice to be with a bunch of folks just like me.� But when the camera pans back, it reveals a bar that is still filled with the Nitschke clones from the earlier ad. Lanier looks around and sheepishly says, “I think I’m in the wrong commercial.�

What is Miller Lite up to? For one thing, it is trying to save ad dollars. The company spends an estimated $90 million annually on its Miller Lite advertising. And if it can get the same mileage at a lower cost, then why not?

At the same time, the company is trying to stay “creatively ahead� of the intense competition in the 850-brand beer market, Spielvogel said. “You have to remain on the cutting edge, or you get cut out.�

Miller Lite’s toughest competitor also recently set its sights on 15-second ads. Within the last few months, Anheuser-Busch, which makes the Bud Light brand, began airing six different 15-second versions of its “Gimme a Light� commercials, according to a spokesman.

Both advertising giants and agency executives are eager to see how the new Miller Lite commercials fare. “It’s a search for distinction,� said Robert J. Herbold, manager of the market research department at Procter & Gamble. “And it’s a trick that might work.�

Not everyone, however, is enamored of the notion of a sudden surge of 15-second ads. “It’s not a panacea,� said Ed Wax, president of Saatchi & Saatchi Compton Inc. “We only use 15-second ads as supplements to broader campaigns.�

Miller, however, may soon expand its 15-second campaign if the first set of bookend ads are successful. “Common sense tells us that the two commercials will be mutually reinforcing,� said Al Easton, vice president for corporate affairs at Miller Brewing. “We hope there will be a sort of synergy between them.�

Getting the Lowdown on What Works--Fast

Steve Wilson gives General Foods and General Mills thought for food.

With the use of high-tech gizmos like supermarket scanners and costly computers, his job is to help companies figure out--as early as possible--if a new product is a hot number or a cold potato.

“We can do a very complete analysis by just hitting a button,� said Wilson, executive vice president of Sami/Burke Inc., a Chicago-based marketing research firm that is a subsidiary of Time Inc. Right now, it takes the firm about three weeks to gather information about a product’s success. Within the next few years, however, Wilson hopes to have a system in place that could help companies get that marketing data in hours instead of weeks.

Over the last few years, advertising and marketing research has gone high tech. “We used to get our information by going to the consumer with a paper and pencil in hand, but no more,� said Mike Naples, president of the New York-based Advertising Research Foundation. The industry trade group held its annual conference in New York last week.

Now, marketing researchers are learning about consumers through high-tech devices like “people meters� that electronically track the TV viewing habits of each person in the house and scanners that keep tabs on what shoppers buy.

The reason for this careful tracking is clear. In January, for example, 552 new grocery products hit the marketplace, compared to a little less than half that number during the same period three years ago. And with the high cost of marketing new products, there is increased pressure to put out items that sell and to quickly get rid of those that flop.

Witness last week’s gathering of nearly 4,000 ad industry executives and researchers who converged at Advertising Research Foundation’s conference. All were there to learn new ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising--now an industry in itself.

The top 40 U.S. manufacturers will spend an estimated $2 billion this year just to research how to market their products, and the demand for this kind of information is growing at an annual 10% clip, according to industry estimates.

“There is one fundamental reason for all this research,� says Robert J. Herbold, manager of market research development at Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest advertiser. “We want to understand the consumer.�

And no one wants to make mistakes. Yet mistakes are the norm for most new products. Nearly 70% of them will eventually be pulled from the shelves--or fall well below their sales potential, said Dick Lukey, a new product researcher at Leo Burnett USA, Chicago.

“Now, you can spot a weakness in a product far earlier,� said Herbold. “And the sooner you can learn about a weak performer, the sooner you can get rid of it.�

Hill & Knowlton Now Biggest PR Company

New leaders have emerged as the largest U.S. public relations firm and the largest independent PR operation, according to a survey scheduled to be released Wednesday by J. R. O’Dwyer Co. of New York, which publishes the Jack O’Dwyer Newsletter.

Hill & Knowlton Inc., with slightly over $100 million in fees, now ranks as the largest PR firm, nosing out Burson-Marsteller, which rated the top spot last year, according to the survey. Both Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller have their headquarters in New York.

And Daniel J. Edelman Inc. of Chicago, with fees of $20.9 million, ranks as the largest independent outfit. Edelman edged out last year’s leader, New York-based Ruder, Finn & Rotman.

“Where you fall on this list can help make you be the first phone call that a client makes,� said Peter Verrengia, a spokesman at Hill & Knowlton, a subsidiary of JWT Group Inc., the New York parent company of the ad firm J. Walter Thompson.

Hill & Knowlton has about 1,000 clients, including Mazda in the Los Angeles area. Hill & Knowlton recently helped publicize the new corporate name of another client, Allegis, parent to United Airlines. Burson-Marsteller is owned by Young & Rubicam, the New York-based ad firm. Over the past year, Edelman has been a public relations counselor to Philippines President Corazon Aquino and also sold its public relations advice to E. F. Hutton, after the Justice Department began investigating the firm for overdrafting practices.