In a welcome and obviously well strategized move, Miller Brewing Company has stepped full force into the blogging world with their new site, Brewblog (which is a great url). It’s goal is to provide daily news, analysis, and commentary in the world of beer. Based on the articles on the current front page I believe it will be a welcome addition not only for employees, distributors, and journalists, but also for marketers and beer aficionados. The commentary is smart, timely and unbiased… but as it’s written by a former Ad Age columnist its not surprising. As a small enticement, here is a sample of their commentary on marketing:
Differentiated advertising approach getting good response for Miller Lite campaign.
The “Men of the Square Table” campaign — in which Burt Reynolds, Jerome Bettis and other icons discuss “Man Laws” — set out to break away from the lowbrow humor that’s defined beer advertising for years and hurt the category’s image.
So far consumers appear to appreciate this effort to redefine the beer culture dialogue. According to data from IAG Research, the campaign does a better job at cutting through the beer advertising clutter than current work for Bud Light and Coors Light. Miller Lite scored above its competitors in six out of seven measurements, including general recall.
In terms of the usability, the blog is easy to navigate, has an upfront ‘About’ section where they describe the relationship between the blog and the parent company, Miller (their write up is quite good, I recommend a read), as well as a well laid out primer in blogging for their new audience (my assumption is they’ve started a large internal push to get the word out).
As a former beer marketer myself I welcome the addition to my browsing list, and although it may not fall definitively within the realm of “corporate blogging” it is a great use of the medium.