Politics is uglier than ever. Is it any wonder we have the finest politicians money can buy?
This election season is unbearably tragic.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s boneheaded ‘Citizen United’ decision earlier this year, corporations, unions, rich fatcats and special interest groups can dump untold fortunes into political campaigns and causes. And, they can do so under the cloak of secrecy with fake organizational names like The Coalition For Freedom And Justice To Preserve Our Constitutional Rights, or People for Protection Against Terror & Terrorists, or Citizens Who Truly Love The American Way of Life, or God’s People Fighting The Hidden Satanic Powers.
All this money is used to make spots that plunge our political discourse to new depths of sleaze, muckraking and mud slinging. The spots flood the airwaves with copy points like…
“Joe Doe says he wants to lower taxes, but he’s never denied that he hasn’t killed small children or strangled puppies with his bare hands…”
“Tom Mutt claims to be a family man, but how do we know he doesn’t have three, four or even ten wives– with countless illegitimate children born out of wedlock? Can we really trust a man of unproven, questionable moral character to represent us in Washington?”
“If Jane Duwayne is so concerned about balancing the state’s budget, why did she get slapped with stinging penalty overdraft charges to her checking account in 1998? Is this the sort of fiscally irresponsible behavior we want today? Can we really trust our financial future to someone who is so reckless she’s been penalized by big banks? And how do we know she doesn’t owe those big bankers more payback? Can we really afford to mortgage our future, and our children’s future on Jane Duwayne?”
“Mike Tadpole says he’s a conservative Republican. But we have no idea if he voted for Obama, secretly loves Nancy Pelosi or is best friends with Harry Reid. And how do we know he’s not hiding bin Laden in his tool shed? Could that be the reason he’s never once talked about his tool shed in his campaigning? What’s Mike Tadpole hiding? Do we really want to find out?”
Sadly, until some real campaign finance reform legislation is passed, which will be next to never since the money funding politicians won’t allow it, we’re stuck with our current freak show political process and airwaves clogged with mud. And all too often, the candidates and causes with the deepest pockets win. And exactly whose best interest do you think they’re beholden to?
As a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling permitting unlimited election finance support of politicians and political causes by corporations, unions and special interest groups, the venerable Democratic and Republican parties are dissolving in favor of direct politician sponsorship.
This means that soon you may see politicians carry designations like, Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil, MetLife, FreedomWorks, Boeing, AMA, Bank of America, NEA, Lockheed Martin, KBR, Novartis, General Electric, Citi and DuPont. Politicians scramble to find corporate sponsors. “Thank goodness for this new ruling,” said a senior senator who demanded anonymity, “we can finally do what we’ve been doing for years– sucking from the corporate teat and letting them guide our hands in writing legislation they can profit by. Now we can do it without the charade of having to debate issues and causes with arcane notions like justice and equality. We can openly allow corporate fascism to rule enabling us to better serve our corporate overlords without the hindrance of the so-called people. Sure, we need them for their votes, but that’s about it. After the election, they just get in the way of things. There’s no need for people in a democracy like ours.”
Asked if this new corporate sponsorship will be like NASCAR sponsorship– with large corporate logos displayed on uniforms, the senator responded angrily, “Don’t be preposterous. That would be tacky. We’ll simply wear lapel pins with tasteful logos to show our sponsor support. We’re not whorish shills, you know.”
Financial companies are elated with the new ruling. “Now we can really help the country with some of our innovative financial ideas,” said a high ranking official who threatened death to this reporter if his identity was disclosed. “Years ago we had to maneuver and work backroom deals to get things like the Glass-Steagall Act overturned. That allowed us to gamble with the housing market finances. Now we don’t have to be so secretive, we can be open about lining the pockets of lawmakers to get laws that favor us without bothersome government oversight or restrictions. If our financial ideas fail, who cares– taxpayers will bail us out. The Supreme Court’s recently ruling ensures a much more transparent buying of politicians, and frankly, what could be more American than that?”
With that, the Wall Street bigwig lit a Cuban Monte Cristo cigar with a burning $1,000 bill and exclaimed, “Hrrrrummmph!”
A first– ad characters get a 'Playboy' cover and pictorial
Seventeen years ago, five scantily-clad women rode into the American consciousness and became lightning rods for political correctness. I am proud to say I had a hand in creating these advertising icons; the famous, the infamous Old Milwaukee Beer Swedish Bikini Team.
What began as a joke ended as a joke. The SBT died in peace. I regret we never got the chance to properly bury these vixens of beerdom. This is the story of what could have been.
In 1991, I was a group creative director at Hal Riney & Partners/San Francisco working on the Old Milwaukee account. The clients said they wanted a new campaign to appeal toyoung beer drinkers. They were open to fresh ideas for changing their long-running campaign as long as we kept the equities of said campaign:
l. Appeal to blue collar men
2. Feature outdoor activities
3. Maintain high energy
5. Keep the slogan “It doesn’t get any better than this…”
6. Be fun
Exhaustive research was conducted indicating young men like women, rock ‘n roll and partying/drinking lots and lots of beer. Thank goodness for research.
The premise of the Swedish Bikini Team campaign was to pick-up the action where the previous Old Milwaukee spots ended: a gathering of guys toasting the moment, saying, “It doesn’t get any better than this…” but then we’d show how it did indeed get better.
It got better with the tried and true trappings one found in any dumb beer commercial at that time: with the addition of rock ‘n roll, sexy women who have an aversion to fabric, food, and fun, fun, fun.Your basic youth fantasy.
Here’s a taste of the SBT:
The campaign was a spoof of all beer advertising, even Old Milwaukee’s. The Swedish Bikini Team was a Monty Pythonesque notion: five women who magically appear in beer spots. They were a send-up of beer commercial babes. They were a running joke, the only constant in the campaign.
The campaign was a blockbuster from the moment it hit the airwaves. It was written up in TV Guide as “this year’s Energizer Bunny.” The phrase ‘Swedish Bikini Team’ was used by Leno and Letterman in monologues, the Team appeared on “Married With Children”–– twice, and wonder of wonder, the women who played the Team agreed to do a pictorial for Playboy appearing sans uniforms. Imagine seeing a figment of your imagination on the cover of Playboy. It was surreal.
But fame soon turned to infamy. The Stroh Brewing Company was hit with a sexual harassment suit. The female attorney made the case the SBT advertising promoted an ‘atmosphere that encouraged sexual harassment.’ It was the year of the Kennedy rape trial and the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Justice hearing, with randy action accusations made by Anita Hill. The media had a sexy new story to turn its spotlights on.
Soon the SBT came to represent the evil that lurks in all men’s loins. Maury Povich and other talk show pundits jumped on the bandwagon and took the moral high road against the SBT. These five women now represented Satan and all that is evil in the world. Other brewersvowed no more sex (in new spots, men would ogle beautiful women in slinky dresses that rode high on thighs–– but no sexist swimwear!).
In the thick of the controversy, I even got a call from a woman in Michigan upset because the Bikini Team members were from Sweden. “What’s wrong with American women?” she asked. “There’s plenty of beautiful women in this country!”
Now we were getting knocked for being unpatriotic.
Of course, the clients became concerned. While it was great to have buzz, it was awful to have notoriety. We proposed a final spot to make lemonade of the lemons we’d been pelted with.
This last spot would be a :60 opus on the Super Bowl to properly bury the Swedish Bikini Team while fanning the flames of publicity. It would have guys gathered around a campfire by a stream. One man would raise his can of Old Milwaukee and say, “Guys, it doesn’t get any better than this.” Then, an announcer would tell us how it could get better. A trout jumps from the stream into a frying pan over the campfire. Then the announcer would say, “And when the Swedish Bikini Team bungee corded into camp… “ but nothing would happen. Suddenly, the commercial director would barge into the scene demanding to know where the Team was. A production assistant appears holding bikinis and blonde wigs and shrugs. The director slumps down and sobs into a wig saying, “They’ll never work in this town again!”
The announcer speaks again: “And so, the Swedish Bikini Team, America’s favorite import, was never heard from again.” Cut to a scene of a frozen tundra at dusk. A super reads Somewhere in Sweden. The camera rolls across the tundra toward a cabin in the horizon. Rock music plays louder and louder the closer the camera gets to the cabin. The announcer says, Although legend has it on cold nights out on the Swedish tundra, you can still hear the call of the wild.” The camera zooms in on a window where a shade is drawn and a silhouette of the SBT dancing appears. The spot ends with an Old Milwaukee logo and “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
It would have been big. We even envisioned a promotional campaign themed “Whatever happened to the Swedish Bikini Team?”
But none of it came to pass. The client was nervous and pulled the plug. Instead, a new campaign was rolled out and the Swedish Bikini Team joined Mr. Whipple and Josephine the Plumber in the unemployment line for advertising icons. Boo hoo.
A few years back, Ad Age ran a survey on the most popular beer campaigns of all time. Amazingly, the Swedish Bikini Team came in second place, behind the first place Jocks campaign for Miller Lite in the 70’s and 80’s. Jocks ran for ten years and used a variety of celebrities and sports heroes. The SBT ran for seven months and used a bunch of unknown women who wore bad wigs and fairly conservative bikinis.
I suspect the campaign will eventually be immortalized as an answer in Trivial Pursuit, if it isn’t already.And for creating an ad campaign, I suppose it doesn’t get any better than that.
If you’re the CMO of a beer account, I’d love another at bat. Swimwear optional.
