Pic(k) of the Week: Schlitz vs. Michelob, LIVE during the Super Bowl

During the broadcast of Super Bowl LI (that is, the 51st Super Bowl) tomorrow, both Snickers and Hyundai will air commercials that have been filmed live. I'm not clear on what advantage is accrued by filming a commercial three days earlier (Snicker) or a few minutes earlier (Hyundai) and broadcasting it as 'live.' The thrill of not editing, perhaps?

The last time the Super Bowl has actually featured a 'live,' not pre-recorded and edited, commercial, was 1981, during Super Bowl XV (15). Broadcast live from New Orleans, the host city of that year's championship game, Schlitz Brewing ran "The Great American Beer Test," a 60-second taste test of its flagship beer vs. Michelob, brewed by Anheuser-Busch.

The spot was hosted by Tommy Bell, a former NFL referee dressed in referee zebra stripes. Before the broadcast, one-hundred "loyal Michelob drinkers." had sampled Schlitz and Michelob in unmarked ceramic beer steins. When the commercial went live, each pulled a lever to indicate their preference.

Part of the appeal of a live broadcast is the spontaneity; the anticipation of an unedited gaffe or unintended serendipity. When Mr. Bell explained the voting procedure, he did well, obviously well-rehearsed, except on one occasion. Hilariously, he seemed to verbally stumble, to hesitate, when saying "Schlitz," his sponsor, having no such difficulty saying "Michelob."

As the commercial concluded, an electronic football scoreboard tallied the result, and Mr. Bell announced it. Fifty of those one-hundred Michelob drinkers had preferred Schlitz. A tie.

In the game, the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10.

But five months after the game, Schlitz would close its Milwaukee brewery, forced to so by a continuing downward spiral in sales, never recovering from a very public cheapening of ingredients and change of process. The following year, the entire company would be sold to Stroh Brewing, and "the beer that made Milwaukee famous," brewed since 1849, was no more.

Schlitz sold today is brewed by Molson Coors for Pabst, itself a brewery without any brewing facilities.

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• Sources:
  • Washington Post (25 January 2017)
    For the first time in 36 years, someone will try a live Super Bowl ad
  • Brutal Hammer of Truth (31 January 2016)
    Super Bowl XV was Last Call for Schlitz
• The video was recorded off a monitor. The original is posted at the Adland website.


• UPDATE: Overcoming a 25-point deficit, the New England Patriots defeated the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in Super Bowl LI, perhaps the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, in the only overtime game in Super Bowl history.


• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of photos taken (or noted) by me, posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as the subject.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


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