San Miguel Beer and Kris Aquino. Uh-oh....

Blank face.

That was my reaction when I saw the latest Kris Aquino San Miguel Beer TV commercial. What the hell were the elite members of McCann Erickson San Miguel Team thinking?

Watch it here: http://www.sanmiguel.com.ph/uploads/commercials/smb_kris.html

I just don't know what to think of it.

The product is San Miguel Pale Pilsen, not San Mig Light, not even Super Dry. It's Pale Pilsen. The endorsers are young, hip and cool. The star is Kris Aquino (well..okay..and Derek Ramsey). Pale Pilsen and Kris Aquino. How come I can't see the connection? Maybe it's just me, maybe I don't belong to their target market/target audience. Maybe because San Mig Light is "so cool" and so successful, everyone is drinking and it started eating away Pale Pilsen's sales. Maybe they are trying to reverse it then. Or maybe it's just simply a wrong branding move.

Kris and her co-stars (and the Ferrari!) are not Pale Pilsen. If their goal is to make it controversial and for people to talk about it, then bravo! People surely talked about it. BUT it didn't do any good for the San Miguel Pale Pilsen brand. What it did was to further de-focus the Pale Pilsen identity and made the brand thinner.

What they should have done is to give the market the good old image of San Miguel Pale Pilsen Beer. The stout, curvy bottle, the aftertaste, the tradition, the men, the food, just like the old times, the old TV commercials ....... no frills, no fuss, just our damn good old beer...and good life! Whatever happened to "Itaas mo" or "Iba ang may pinagsamahan"? THAT was San Miguel Pale Pilsen. Kris Aquino and the gang are just not.

I predict a time when beer drinkers will get tired of San Mig Light (and other fancy beer brands) and will crave for the good old Pale Pilsen. It's actually slowly happening.