Miller Lite shines a light into the darkness of social

The Background

A great new campaign has aired with Miller Lite is positioning itself as "The Original Social Media" in the brand’s first campaign under its new CMO Michelle St. Jacques.

It’s a 90-second hero spot, created in partnership with ad agency DDB, and pushes a frank and powerful anti-phone agenda supported by a great tagline: "A few friends are better than a few thousand followers".

The Big Idea

The basic premise is that today’s generation of new drinkers will spend more than five years of their lifetime using social media (a very sad statistic indeed), and yet the fact is that they are only meeting up with their close friends less than a few times a month.

It appears that with so many young drinkers focused on their phones and screens, the brand and creators of this spot wanted to champion a different kind of social, something perhaps more genuine such as real-life, face-to-face connections and shared experiences with the note of “best enjoyed at a bar over Miller Lite”.

The Review

I found some commentary from some of those involved and it resonates with me.

"In this new ad, we’re reminding people that getting beers with friends, or Miller Time, was really the original social media. To bring social media to life like never before, we wanted to imagine what a world would look like if our 'followers' literally followed us.

"Creatively, ‘followers’ is a completely new direction for us, with a new visual style and storytelling approach. It’s also an exciting new way to talk about when and how people enjoy Miller Lite."

I love what has been created – it’s playful and slightly dark in its creative and the messaging is spot on.

In Hindsight

I really can’t fault anything in this – a fantastic and classy execution.

It is stylish, well filmed and cast, and airs the mess that society and youth culture is in, partly due to the overuse of influencers and social platforms.