a commercial to hate

Here's a new commercial to hate, as well as a compelling reason to dust off the ol' boycott of things I'd never buy anyway:



This commercial represents a bold shift in the faux-masculine marketing strategy that initially prompted my boycott. Rather than use crude stereotypes and homophobia to sell traditionally male products (like beer and fast food), the Mike's guys are betting these same tools can be used to sell something no male I know has ever purchased. My hunch is that market research found no demographic interested in buying an overly sweet, fruit-flavored malt beverage, so their last-ditch effort to turn things around was simply to tell people that Mike's Hard Lemonade is manly, then hope no one notices that the underlying product has always been about the wussiest thing on earth.

The optimist in me hopes this commercial represents nothing more than the death knell sounding on a really shitty product, rather than the beginning of another depressing cycle of commercials trafficking in tired gender clichés.

The optimist in me is small.