AdMiration feature: Miller Lite’s "Legendary Stories”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Miller Lite’s "Legendary Stories” ad, which celebrates their legendary 50 years and honors late sports legends John Madden, Dick Butkus and Bob Uecker.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to the sound of a crowd cheering and a black and white shot of a group of people at a bar, with a man standing and holding a Miller Lite high in the air next to a neon Miller Lite sign. 

David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” starts to play as a montage of vintage photos featuring Miller Lite trucks, bottles and drinkers (from your coworker to celebrities) at bars, homes and more are featured as Christopher Walken narrates, “This right here: The legendary light beer. The originator. The inventor. If this can could talk, it’d tell stories. About that one time, that one night, that one guy, that one gal. Writing a story 50 years long.” 

Another montage of people raising their Miller Lite cans in the air is shown as Walken concludes, “And 50 million friends wide. Legendary stories start with Lite. Here’s to 50 years of Miller time.” The ad closes with a shot of a Miller Lite can, quickly flickering through the can designs over the years, in front of a Miller Lite branded “50” for 50 years. 

3 facts

• Miller Lite’s ad performed exceptionally well, landing in the top 2% of US ads in ability to drive short term sales (Sales Impact: 99) and long term brand equity (Brand Impact: 98).

• Viewers knew it could only be an ad for Miller Lite with both brand recall (85% vs. 68% norm) and uniqueness of brand impressions (4.2 versus 3.9 norm) far surpassing the category norms. And on top of easily recalling who the ad was for, it resonated strongly with people with 89% people choosing love or like to describe how they felt about the ad (versus a norm of 77%) and significantly more people than average feeling the ad was highly relevant to them (3.9 versus a norm of 3.6). 

• The ad also does an excellent job of making people want to try the product. Incredibly, purchase intent jumps from 6% to 42% after watching the ad. This is due to the strong resonance and the ad doing a great job at communicating attributes that are important to the category, such as being “For everyone” (57% vs. 42% norm), great for socializing (53% versus 39%) and “For people like me” (40% vs. 28% norm). Ultimately this will help the brand come to mind more positively at key moments or occasions and increase its chances of being chosen.

2 learnings

• A great narrator can help deliver on your brand messaging and the emotions you’re trying to evoke in your advertising. In this case, Christopher Walken is an instantly recognizable, legendary voice that not only brings a sense of celebrity status to the spot, but also caters to the unique, distinctive and memorable message the brand is trying to convey with their “Legendary Stories” spot — which also speaks to how distinctive the audience found this ad to be. Often montage ads fail to connect emotionally with their audience, not allowing them to fully engage in a story. This ad is an exception, helped a lot by the narration.

• Music can convey the tone of your ad. In this ad, the music matched the vintage and celebratory vibes the brand was trying to convey, with “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie exploding alongside the montage of cool, retro photos which coincided perfectly with their message that they have been around for 50 years.

1 reflection

When you want to celebrate a milestone, can you still make it about your audience and not just you? What makes this ad so powerful is that it taps into nostalgia (something audiences love, taking them back to the good old days they remember with rose tinted glasses) and reminds people of the good times they've had. It might be about 50 years of Miller Lite, but the execution cleverly becomes about 50 years of joy and good times that people have enjoyed (with the brand).

In honor of 50 years, Miller Lite’s “Legendary Stories Start with a Lite” campaign was launched to mark the golden anniversary that kicks off a full year of celebrations. 

The ad was created by Leo Chicago, with production help from the Publicis network.

The spot, which premiered during the first round of the men’s college basketball tournament, appropriately features original Miller Lite all-stars John Madden, Dick Butkus and Bob Uecker among their montage of drinkers.

The brand's Vice President of Marketing, Ann Legan, shares: “Miller Lite has truly been a story in the making for 50 years. We wanted to celebrate the people who put the brand on the map and made it famous – our drinkers. If you’ve had a Miller Lite, you probably have a story worth telling.”  

Many of the archival photos, digital prints and photobooth sheets of people enjoying Miller Lite were found by STALKR and Catch+Release, while others are from “friends of friends of friends” and Miller Lite’s own archives. According to Ann, “some of the candid photos of the Miller Lite all-stars and images from past events and conferences have never been seen before.”

She continues on to say that when they were looking for the right person to narrate the ad the goal was to choose someone with an iconic presence, and Walken was the ideal choice, stating: “Christopher Walken is a true original, just like we are. He tells stories in a way that's different from everyone else - recognizable and unique. He captures the notion of being legendary, unique, and memorable.”

The brand shared that fans can expect more activations for the anniversary in the coming months, such as specialty packaging, unique collaborations, new spokespeople and more.

This ad gets everything right! “Legendary Stories” performed astoundingly well with consumers, landing in the top 2% of US ads in ability to drive short term sales and long term brand equity (Sales Impact: 99, Brand Impact: 98).

It's highly distinctive with a distinctive visual style using black and white photos to evoke a real sense of nostalgia and stand out versus other ads, with people saying things like “I loved the nostalgia showing 50 years of memories and stories from having a good time enjoying Miller Lite” and “I liked the whole thing, I liked how it showed old black and white pictures, it showed people having a good time together…”

Viewers thoroughly enjoyed the ad (Enjoyment: 4.2 vs. 3.9 norm), including the music choice (Music Appeal: 4.2 vs. 3.8 norm) found it to be highly relevant (Relevance: 3.9 vs. 3.6 norm) and made them feel more positively about the brand after watching (Brand appeal: 4.1 vs. 3.9).

Through the narrative and visual montage, the ad reminds people that the brand really is for everyone, great for socializing and that it is a quality beer, meaning it will come to mind more strongly and positively when it matters. This is reflected in the huge uplift in the number of people who are likely to choose Miller Lite after seeing the ad with purchase intent jumped from 6% to 42%, an astounding 36%, after watching the ad!

The brand plays a key role for people as part of the nostalgic story of 50 years of legendary stories. Unsurprisingly, it was easy for viewers to recall who the ad was for with a high brand recall of 85% vs. 68% norm. This coincides with how distinct the audience found the ad to be (4.0 vs. 3.8 norm) as well as the story recall, with 32% of viewers mentioning “50,” signifying that the message about 50 years clearly came through.

Miller Lite also did a fantastic job at effectively communicating key attributes that are important to their category, with the most notable being “For everyone” (57% vs. 42% norm) and “For people like me” (40% vs. 28% norm).

Positive emotions were abound in this spot, with consistent “Love” and “Like” reactions throughout the entirety of the ad (Love: 35% vs. 29% norm, Like: 54% vs. 48% norm) and an overall emotion score of 68 vs. 56 norm. 

But it's not all about the brand. The 50 years are celebrated by reminding people of the good times and legendary stories they have over the 50 years. 89% people feel “Love” and “Like” as a result of the ad, people find the ad to be highly relevant to them and as we mentioned above the enjoyment of the ad is also very high (4.2 versus 3.9 norm). 

There are peaks in emotion whenever they see the legendary moments of joy experienced by people throughout the ad and people really love the nostalgia (19% people mention this as their key like) and how it makes them feel, with 36% talking about the emotional appeal — the joy, the socializing, the smiles, the happiness and the fun being had.

Here’s what some people had to say about the ad:

• "The ad was upbeat and nostalgic, showing people celebrating moments together. I especially liked the words "writing legendary stories" in this ad. I also liked seeing the enjoyment on the people's faces as they were celebrating life's happy moments."

• "I liked the whole thing, I liked how it showed old black and white pictures, it showed people having a good time together, and it also showed how they've been around for 50 years and have become legendary."

• "I liked that the ad showed ordinary hard working people like myself, drinking Miller Lite and creating memories, adding to the 50 years of stories."

• "I loved the nostalgia showing 50 years of memories and stories from having a good time enjoying Miller Lite."

• "I like the narration and photos in a slideshow versus the usual video format. I liked the slogans. David Bowie song used."

• It shows every moment celebrating good times with good friends for 50 years. I liked the whole ad.

• "I thought it was a pretty cool ad. People looked like they were having a great time."

• "I liked it was narrated by the great Christopher Walken."

Overall, this is a wonderful, feel good ad that cleverly celebrates the 50 years of the brand, by celebrating the joy it has brought to so many over the years.

This was truly a legendary and memorable spot from Miller Lite — a fantastic way to celebrate 50 years! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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