Michelob’s organic campaign is phony attempt to play nice with farmers
By: Amanda Zaluckyi, The Farmer’s Daughter
Super Bowl commercials have become a collateral attraction to the big game for years. Companies spend exorbitant amounts of money hoping to leave a lasting impression on viewers. And it’s an excellent opportunity with the Super Bowl having an average viewership of 98.2 million people.
Michelob Ultra Pure Gold, an organic beer, is taking another stab commercial glory with its 6 For 6-Pack campaign. Michelob promises that for every six pack of its organic beer sold, it will help transition six square feet of farmland into organic production. The commercial is part of Anheuser-Busch’s larger “Better World” campaign that hopes to meet certain sustainability goals by 2025.
Of course, those familiar with Super Bowl commercials will likely remember Anheuser-Busch’s epic failures last year. Bud Light’s no-corn-syrup advertisements sent farmers on social media into a full-blown meltdown. It was a dumb move that poured over into the courtroom when MillerCoors sued over the commercial’s misleading nature (MillerCoors won the lawsuit in federal court). Anheuser-Busch’s later efforts to fix the rift were generally unsuccessful.
But Bud Light wasn’t alone last year. Michelob, which is also owned by Anheuser-Busch, introduced the Ultra Pure Gold organic beer with all the traditional aspects of beer commercials: celebrities and sex. Zoe Kravitz enticingly told viewers that this was “beer in its organic form.” And viewers were supposed to understand that, somehow, organic beer was better-for-you beer.
Perhaps I’m too cynical, but Michelob’s 6 For 6-Pack campaign seems like a misguided way to play nice with farmers. But it’s definitely not impressive.
This is the absolute epitome of virtue signalling. People can go to the store, pick up a pricey 6-pack of organic beer, and enjoy knowing it that it’s helping some general sustainability goal. Woohoo!
But this is literally the most pathetic attempt to “help” anyone. Let’s do some simple math. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre. Michelob is willing to support the transition of 6 square feet for every 6-pack sold. That means they have to sell 7,260 packs of beer to pay for one acre to transition to organic production.
What does that mean for actual farmers? Not much. The average U.S. farm is 234 acres. And that’s fairly small; my family farms about 2,000 acres — and that’s a mid-size farm in our area and crop type. Michelob would have to sell 1,698,840 packs of beer to help an “average” size farmer transition to organic production. (I won’t do the math for my family’s operation because there’s no reason to belabor the point.)
Who do you think is getting the better deal here: American farmers or Michelob?