Will You Chill?

Miller will be introducing a "chelada style" beer in the USA, under the brand name MILLER CHILL. It's a lower calorie light beer, with the lime and salt flavorings already mixed in (cause the effort involved in procuring lime, squeezing said lime, then salting glass is too much for most beer drinkers). Basically they're watering down regular beer, adding a flavor to disguise said watering down, and marketing it as a feature and not a flaw. Smart move.

Funny thing the lime.

Straight up, they taste like soap.

But there are few things that aren't made better with a twist of fresh lime juice squeezed on to or into it.

It seems likely to be marketed at the "Spanglish" crowd, more aimed at Xicanos (especially the ones who spell 'chicano' with an 'x'), and not actual Mexicans (yes, there's a difference).

According to the article, "The lime green bottles feature green and silver designs reminiscent of Aztec art, with the word "Chill" in bold black letters across the front and "Chelada style" below".

I will confess here (thanks to my anonymous blogger status) that I do drink plenty of Diet Coke with Lime (I consume enough other empty calories, that it seems wise to forgo them in my soft drinks), so I might be one of those Xicanos who buys this new brand of cerveza (My father's half Mexican by birth (not by upbringing), so that makes me sort of Xicano).

It will be interesting to see how heavily sexist they go in the marketing campaign, if you watch any television in Spanish (best example would be Estudio 2, it's phenomenal, and surreal), you'll be readily convinced that there's no such thing as a Spanish speaking chica with a bustline anything less than a 36C. So I'd expect to see bikini teams, suggestive advertising, and the whole old school female body objectifying beer ads that they used to run in English to be propigated in their ads directed at Spanish speaking consumers in the United States.

Hopefully they'll throw in some of those horribly sexist ads in English, too.

If not they could go Spuds McKenzie with the campaign and convince Warner Brothers to license a particular rodent's likeness for a media blitz.