Changing beer's image

I read this item, in Knowledge@Wharton, a few weeks ago, and have seen a few other articles about the effort by the Beer Institute, funded mostly by Anheuser-Busch, to upgrade the image of beer. Apparently they want to build around beer the sort of romance, sophistication, and glamour wine holds for some people.

Well, okay, if that's how you want to spend your money. I thought it seemed sort of unlikely, and the biggest reason was along these lines:

Besides, notes Stephen J. Hoch, chairman of Wharton's marketing department, any money spent on an industry-wide campaign would probably be dwarfed by the amount spent by individual breweries to sell their brands. Companies need to "figure out how they can move away from their old position," he says. "But frankly, they can't move too far away because they have a huge base of customers. This is a business driven by heavy users. How much can [companies] spend on this new ad campaign compared with what they already spend on heavy users?"

Yesterday, I think, proved the point. Apparently the Beer Institute ran an ad on the Super Bowl, which I must have missed. But Bud also ran an ad showing a bunch of beer-drinkers worshipping a magic rerfrigerator, and another showing a bunch of people tearing an office apart looking for hidden beer.

These ads might have been clever and amusing (magic fridge = yes, office riot = no), but I don't think they did much to create an image of sophisticationand glamour for beer. Which message do you think came through yesterday?