This Midwest Beer Brand Once Threatened To 'Kill' Non-Customers In A Disaster Ad Campaign

Companies will sometimes do some desperate things when they think they're losing to the competition, but one beer brand (which was once the largest in America) may have let that pressure push it into one of the most disastrous ad campaigns in history. From the late '50s until 2023, Budweiser was the best selling brand in the country, either in its classic form or later on as Bud Light, and everyone knew the other big challengers were Coors and Miller. This was the case for so long that many younger Americans may not know there was another name that was the Anheuser-Busch brewery's biggest challenger all the way up through the '70s: Schlitz.

Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, all the way back in 1849, Schlitz had been the most popular beer brand in the U.S. between the turn of the century and the 1950s. In 1957, it was overtaken by Budweiser, but Schlitz brewery maintained the number two spot for several decades. Then, in the early '70s, Schlitz took that tough competition head on by trying to beat Bud at production, introducing a new rapid fermentation process and cheaper ingredients it thought would cut costs.

Unfortunately, what was destroyed was the beer itself, as the texture turned sludgy and the fans hated the new taste. Sales started to tank, and the company had to recall 10 million bottles and cans in 1976. In a panic to rehabilitate its image, Schlitz turned to big name Chicago advertising magnate Leo Burnett, who conceived of a "tough" new ad campaign that would go down in marketing history for all the wrong reasons. The whole thing was a bona fide disaster.

The campaign the marketers came up for Schlitz was built around the tagline, "If you don't have Schlitz, you don't have gusto." In a series of four ads, an offscreen voice asks different tough characters to give up their Schlitz and try some other unnamed beer. In response, these men — typically a boxer, or a mountain man with a (real) pet cougar — threaten the voice for daring to "take away their gusto." The mountain man informs his pet cougar he found its lunch, while the boxer says, "You're gonna be down for the count so long they're gonna use a calculator."

Of course, these "threats" — jokey as they are — were directed right at the camera, making it seem like the viewers themselves were being threatened. The negative reaction was immediate, and the campaign was quickly nicknamed "Drink Schlitz or I'll Kill You." It was such a disaster that Schlitz pulled the ads after only 10 weeks. Needless to say, Burnett was kicked to the curb.

Coming on the heels of the recipe change, the ad campaign only furthered Schlitz's decline. Esquire reports that sales fell 75% between 1976 and 1981. The mismanagement of the company also meant it was beset by other problems, including shady accounting practices that led to an SEC investigation, and a labor dispute in 1981. With the massive drop in popularity, there was no way to recover. In 1982, what had been the country's number two beer back in the '70s was sold to Stroh's. Today, the brand survives under the Pabst umbrella, but its infamous ad campaign would be the last time Schlitz was a nationally relevant beer.