Selling Beauty

Christie Brinkley pitches beer

Everybody knows what goes into a beer commercial, right? Lots of back-slapping by beefy athletes, such as baseball's Mickey Mantle and boxing's Joe Frazier. But now there is something new and beautiful in the ads. For the first time, a woman is starring in a major beer commercial.

The new ads for Anheuser-Busch's Natural Light feature Cover Girl Christie Brinkley, 27, who fills a red-and-white-striped bathing suit with come-hither bust, hips and thighs. "You don't have to be some macho jock to like Natural Light," says Brinkley in one television commercial.

The switch from brawny to beautiful is Natural Light's latest attempt to challenge bestselling Miller Lite Beer and runner-up Michelob Light. Natural Light is only No. 3 in the light-beer market, which accounts for close to $3 billion, or about 13% of U.S. beer sales. Miller Lite beer ads have long made heavy use of male athletes in an attempt to drive home the message that Lite, though low calorie, is a real beer-drinker's beer, not the namby-pamby brew of weaklings.

Anheuser-Busch says the Brinkley ads are partly a play for the female market. Explains Senior Product Manager Robert Merz: "We decided to showcase a woman in this new commercial because 50% of the light-beer drinkers are women." But G. Robert Holmen, who produces the ads for competing Miller Lite, insists that Natural Light is only using Madison Avenue's oldest pitch of all. Sniffs he: "This is the last gasp for Natural Light. They are relying on sex to sell the product." Shameful.

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