• by Mark Naples , February 3, 2006

(Note: I can't write Super Bowl without fear of legal retribution by the NFL's Licensing Arm. So, don't tell anybody, OK?) Since the "Big Game" is this Sunday, it's only natural to write about the smart marketers who are leveraging multiple platforms to maximize their roughly $2.5M investment for a minute of time.

Who's smarter, Papa John's, for their sweepstakes based on the completion of a pass longer than any other in Super Bowl (whoops) history? Just one completion of 86 yards gets any registrant on Pap John's Web site a free pie. Or, is it GoDaddy, which has leveraged truly vapid, silly scintillation to more revenue than their almost-certainly censored $2.5M "creative" could have bought? (Note: at the last minute, ABC announced that GoDaddy's ad will indeed be appearing on Sunday--see today's MDN.) I'll reveal my answer in the Spin Board if enough of you give me yours.

OK, I'll do it anyway.

Besides, I have a wild-card entry--a real winner--just like those wild card Steelers this Sunday. For the smartest decision among marketers in the Super Bowl category, I nominate Miller Brewing Company.

Can you believe that Miller Brewing's Miller Lite brand finally put all its strategy under one roof? This is the company that - until recently - had steadfastly refused to align its brand assertion with anything having to do with the taste of its product, and only did so after long-overdue research indicated that taste was actually part of the reason consumers were loyal to the brand.

I'm not making this up. Think about it--what other major food or beverage brand has so assiduously stayed away from the taste of its product in its advertising than Miller? That is, until recently. In addition to Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miller has been working with Ogilvy & Mather, Interpublic's Martin Agency, and Wieden and Kennedy, as well as others. Miller hasn't been working with these agencies just for buying. They've allowed each to manage their account vertically, ensuring that the brand messaging would be, well, schizophrenic, if not muddled.

Recall the Miller Lite commercials you've seen on broadcast television during the last months. There's one featuring a guy with a loooooong extension cord reaching for a 12 pack in a local bodega while watching a football game on a small TV, there's one with a motley team of NFL-style referees training on how to flag Bud Light drinkers for various infractions on good taste, and a series within a courtroom featuring a jeans-and-cord-jacketed frat boy prosecutor going after multiple witnesses and defendants for the brand.

One of these is actually very, very funny and exactly what I would expect Miller Lite to be looking for, with my title subject, Flava Flav, acting as an expert witness. I'm probably part of a very small sub-segment that actually knows who this clock-clad icon is, but just seeing him in that ad alone almost made me thirsty for a Lite. Almost.

The point is that these multiple brand messages do more to confuse consumers than inspire them. The news this past week that Miller Lite had announced the consolidation of its strategy and brand messaging under one agency was met with praise everywhere, except the above agencies not called Crispin Porter & Bogusky--which owns the whole business now.

All a pocket pundit like me can say is it's about time. No knock on any of the other agencies, any one of which could do great work for this or a number of other brands. But, in this, the fragmentation epoch, brand alignment is more important than ever. Just because audience fragmentation complicates what marketers do, doesn't mean that decision-makers should further complicate things by having multiple messages, multiple messengers, and multiple brand idioms. Think of the smartest, best asserted brands in the world. How complicated are they? Everything else is getting more complicated, which is precisely why your brand messaging had better be as seamless as possible.

What we do might be difficult at times, but if your campaign is really complicated, chances are, there are easier, more efficient ways of getting there. I don't know what took so long, but let's raise a Miller Lite, since those guys finally realized this irrefutable fact. Even Bubba Smith, Marvelous Marv Throneberry, and John Madden may all agree with Flava Flav and Chuck D on this one.