Brewer playing to a new crowd

MILWAUKEE - Air guitar champ William Ocean will never be mistaken for Bob Uecker. But the relationship both men have with Miller Brewing Co. shows how the nation's No. 2 brewer is taking a radically different approach to reach a new generation of consumers.

Uecker, the legendary Milwaukee Brewers radio announcer, was among the former athletes and other celebrities who starred in a long-running TV advertising campaign for Miller Lite. The so-called "Uecker seats" at Miller Park are cheap tickets, with the name a reference to a TV spot that had Uecker ousted from a ballpark box seat and exiled to the nosebleed section.

Lite reigns as Miller Brewing's No. 1 brand and carries the biggest ad budget among the company's brews. But Miller's fortunes are increasingly tied to guys such as Ocean: young hipsters who are drinking less beer than their baby boomer parents and are more likely to tune out mainstream ad campaigns.

Air guitar sponsorship

Ocean is a big fan of Sparks, Miller's citrus-flavored malt drink laced with caffeine. He began drinking it soon after it was launched in 2002, and he later incorporated Sparks into his air guitar stage act. That led to a new promotional partnership between Ocean and Sparks, part of Miller's offbeat marketing campaign.

There are no TV spots or radio jingles for Sparks. You won't see the stuff promoted at sporting events where beer is a staple. Instead, Miller is using a chaotically designed website (www.sparks.com), giveaways of Sparks at house parties and other gatherings, and the sponsorship of events such as art shows where beer is usually not part of the scene.

It's unlike anything Miller has done, and the Miller name is generally not connected with those efforts. The Sparks website refers to Steel Brewing Co., a Miller subsidiary with an official location of Irwindale, Calif., where Miller operates a brewery.

Miller executives declined to discuss their marketing strategy for Sparks. Randy Ransom, Miller's chief marketing officer, recently told trade publication Advertising Age that the company was trying not to "Millerize" the Sparks brand.

"We've been doing mass marketing a long time, and this taught us a different way," Ransom was quoted as saying.

Sparks was created by McKenzie River Corp., a San Francisco beverage marketing firm, to compete with Red Bull, a caffeinated, citrus-flavored drink that is mixed by clubgoers with vodka, giving them a supposed energy kick with their cocktail.

Miller last year bought Sparks, companion brands Sparks Plus and Sparks Light, and Steel Reserve malt liquor from McKenzie River for $215 million.

Misleading claims alleged

Sparks and other caffeinated alcohol drinks caught some criticism in August. A letter signed by attorneys general from 28 states said the drinks were sold with misleading claims that they will help drinkers stay up late and party all night. State officials asked the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to expand its efforts to prevent misleading statements from being used to sell the drinks.

Miller and other drinkmakers said they work closely with the bureau to ensure that their products meet federal regulatory requirements. McKenzie River earlier agreed to pay a $200,000 fine after the bureau found that the firm published magazine ads that implied Sparks has a stimulating or energizing effect.

The Sparks brands make up only about 350,000 barrels of Miller's annual sales volume of 38 million barrels, according to Eric Shepherd, editor of trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights. But those sales are increasing rapidly, he said.

Miller's sales tactics for Sparks are similar to those used by other companies that hope to get young people talking about their products without the use of traditional mass media advertising.

The idea is that people will talk up the drink to their friends, said Anastasia Goodstein, editor of ypulse.com. That website focuses on marketing to Generation Y, a group defined by some as being born from the early 1980s through the mid-'90s.

"The person-to-person approach is especially effective with younger people," Goodstein said. "That's sort of who they trust the most."