I remember a few years age when San Miguel Corp. launched their San mig light beer. it kicked off with Ding Dong Dantes and Marian Rivera in a series TVC where they seem to have some tension between them. This followed through with their regular SMB parties and ever widening scope of oktoberfest (4 months?) activities has made them the most bullet proof entity in straw gold pale pilsner.
San Miguel on the other hand came out with a strong campaign for their core product the Pale Pilsen as it seemed to be going out of fashion, hence they nominated brand ambassadors such as Micheal V, Efren Reyes, Derek Ramsey and Manny Paquiao. This along with the catchy san miguel pale pilsen time na! jingle gave them a slight edge up on the dwindling negative image of the old school beer in a brown fat bottle (for the dads). Which in my opinion is their only decent beer, light tastes like grass, cerveza negra too sweet, and the premium targeted towards idiots tastes like piss. Then comes the Bi-polar San mig light follow up, highs and lows.It kicked of with a decent radio ad with two guys from a barkada (group of friends) argue about the most nonsensical things light calories and playing around with the tagalog word for why (Baket?) with bucket. It might seem offbeat but it really got people's attention. The Pale pilsen series I discussed above comes next, followed by SMB light's downfall.
They come up with an updated version of the two guys bantering on silly things.. except this time the jokes are too obvious , too redundant, too lame. It didn't have the charm and feel of the first radio ads making it a desperate try to cling on what worked before... hello this is a few years later, things change, people get tired of the same crap. Here comes the new even weirder part, they got an endorser.. that they try to integrate into the ad. wtf.
Sam Pinto is a cute girl, they picked her to be the face of San Mig Light, but to the ad industry's tears, they epically fail in doing so. They relate the beer to sam, to sam, sam, and order another bucket of sam. How can relate to this? If i'm past teeny bopper age, i wouldn't know sam pinto. And frankly with this radio ad I can care less. goes the same way with the ponds commercial ad, if you have to say the endorsers name, then you shouldn't have done it on radio, tv would have been a smarter choice.
This goes in a vibrant contrast with their new addition to the San Miguel Pale Pilsen crew, Bossing Vic Sotto.
They teased it on facebook with a photo of him having fun with the "guys" of the first iteration, with his back to the camera. They did this one on the radio as well, and without a name, damn that's Vic Sotto, instant recognition, what radio ad endorsers should be. Jeez, who the F is handling the San Mig Light account should drink more beer, and maybe they'd get better ideas.
