The Miller Lite brand of the Miller Brewing Co. has hit a homerun amongst male beer drinkers in the US.  The first time I saw one of the commercials featuring the “Men of the Square Table” (including Burt Reynolds, Jerome Bettis and other male icons) I wasn’t sure what I thought of it.  But lately I’ve been noticing strange behavior amongst my beer drinking brethren.  In bars, at weddings or while hanging around the camp fire “Man Laws”, as determined by the “Men of the Square Table”, have begun to take effect.

I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago when I was at one of my favorite bars after work.  Some co-workers and I were sitting at the bar enjoying some cold brews when we saw the waitress pick up about six beers.  When she lifted them off the bar we were horrified by the sight of her sticking her fingers into the necks of the bottles to carry them.  One of my co-workers pointed at her and yelled, “NO! Man law violation!”  His exclamation caused a loud roar of laughter from men in the bar, followed by a multitude of, “I love those commericials, man!”

The second, and more interesting, example of the “Man Law” phenomenon occurred last weekend at a wedding.  After the ceremony, when the beers came out and the fun began, I started noticing awkward toasting going on all around me.  Instead of the usual cheers, with people touching their beer’s neck to a friend’s, men were all tapping the bottom of the beers as a sign of friendship.  Some of the gentlemen were confused by this, but I knew exactly what it was, a “Man Law”!

Call me crazy but research groups show that the “Man Laws” created by the “Men of the Square Table” are getting the attention of male viewers.  IAG Research, an advertising research firm, has concluded that the Miller Lite ads do “a better job at cutting through the beer advertising clutter than current work for Bud Light and Coors Light.”  If you haven’t seen these ads and you can’t wait until they are included in a commercial break from your favorite TV show, you can see a good selection of them at YouTube.com:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=I85vo9FTG8s&mode=related&search=miller%20man%20laws