Merry Christmas From Your Favorite Beer......But Not Really

Ah, the commercial that wasn't good when it debuted in 1990 is back for year #20! Thanks for being here, Corona. Really though, who decided this commercial was clever enough to become such a fixture? Maybe there has been a standing challenge at Corona to anyone who can make another Christmas commercial with a beach theme that doesn't involve a palm tree with Christmas lights...somebody save us from this already. In the meantime, that palm tree has enjoyed more screen time than most Hollywood actors and the whistling guy is probably pissed that he volunteered his whistling for Corona when he was an intern there 20 years ago and isn't collecting any royalties....well, that and that his internship prepared him to do marketing for the extremely small "beach marketing" niche. I'm sure all of his co workers at Coppertone now know why they've been hearing him whistle for all these years.

So you thought a 20 year run was bad? How about this TWENTY THREE YEAR OLD commercial that is as much a commercial for beer as it is recycling:



Copyright 2006?! Who are you fooling? I bet whoever at Budweiser came up with the "hey when we reformat this commercial for HD we can change the copyright date so people will forget that it's from 1987" is (still) patting himself on the back right now. As with the Corona commercial can someone tell me why this commercial is good enough to have been on for so long? OMG! It's those horses! In the snow! With a Christmas tree! Do you think when this commercial was screened for the higher ups at Bud that they gave the commercial a standing ovation with tears in their eyes and exclaimed "It's beautiful! Let's show this commercial until the end of time!" I guess I'm just shocked that we never saw an equally pedestrian commercial with those stupid frogs in Christmas hats or something.

It really looks like I'm going to be seeing these commercials for the rest of my life...but why? I've seen great commercials (and really, just about any commercial) before that last no more than 6 months on the air. Maybe you disagree with me about not liking these commercials, but do you really like seeing these commercials year after year? Are Bud and Corona just hoping that at this point people just expect these commercials to be on and that they're associated with Christmas enough that they can be lazy and never make another Christmas commercial again? I guess if any two companies were to pull something like this, it would be companies that use the same gimmicks for their commercials over and over again--Bud with the horses and Corona with the beaches.

Do you think the employees of Corona and Bud send out the same exact Christmas card to their friends and family every year?