Days 6-8: PBR Marketing and File Cabinets

If you read Day 5, you'll know that I basically spent Day 6 hungover, curled up in the fetal position.

I spent Day 7 cleaning my apartment and made a significant discovery. Either through denial or delusion, I've failed to acknowledge that I need a paper filing system in my home. I've always thought that I could scan important documents (I don't have a scanner) or photograph them and store them digitally on an external hard drive.

The problem with that idea is that I still create a "processing" pile that inevitably turns into an "I'll look at and deal with this later" pile. No more! I pared down several piles of paper into one and will try to find a small flat-file storage system this week. Examples of such systems from Urban Remains can be found here, here, here, and here. A more traditional, but still vintage/industrial option could be getting a couple of these. If a vintage one proves too pricey, I'll probably just pick up one of these from the container store.

That night I had a wonderful dinner at Chickpea restaurant, located at Chicago and Damen. If you haven't yet been, go now. It's one of the best Middle Eastern restaurants I've been to in the city. On the opposite corner of that intersection, I noticed an awesome PBR ad.

A pig hand puppet holds a can of PBR.

They picked a neighborhood where their beer is very popular, Ukrainian Village, and they recognized that their market doesn't want standard-issue, mass-produced beer ads. I spotted another in Wicker Park on Day 8.

An ad above Red Hen Bakery on Milwaukee Ave, just north of the crotch.

This one is a lot edgier than the pig puppet. Styled like the raised fist, this ad has the potential to appeal to the more mainstream, liberal-minded, high-energy crowds that pass through that intersection. The handmade aspect of these ads definitely appeals to those who identify as having counter-culture tendencies while (unknowingly?) drinking the beer of the masses. PBR has very successfully identified their consumers and placed ads where they hang out -- another example, I hear ads for PBR on the NPR music site when I create online playlists.

On Day 8 I also noticed a PBR truck dropping off a shipment and took a snapshot of the truck.

Back door of a PBR truck. Sorry for the quality, I took this from my car.

I think their image as a company is very interesting. Their use of art and ad placement really exhibits a deep understanding of their audience and how self-aware they are of their place in the beer landscape.

If you visit their website, you can view tons of PBR art pieces. You also might notice that it reads like a neighborhood bulletin board or community gathering place. Compare it to the websites for Budweiser and MillerCoors.

Have you seen or heard any PBR ads lately?