It's Miller Time (to improve your product)

Every Miller Lite commercial is about the new and innovative way in which the company has packaged/delivered its product. The most recent invention: The Vortex bottle, which spins the liquid as it comes out of the bottle (to aerate it, I suppose. This works with wine, so I guess the thinking is this works for the champagne of beers as well).

Don't let "Great Pilsner Taste" fool you as a proof of concept: It's also written on the bottle and in the logo.

Miller Lite does this all the time. In 2008 Miller announced it would be offered in aluminum bottles, and in 2009 it created The Draught Box which reminds me of the beer balls of my youth. (Now there's a phrase that will come back to haunt me.)

The Draught Box. Because only the highest-quality alcoholic beverages come from a box.

Enough with the stupid packaging - a bottle is a bottle. Where's the product innovation?

I swear when people tell me they "enjoy the taste" I want to punch them in the beer balls, because no human in civilized society should like the taste of his/her own urine.

Black Eye Beer Company has a good point: Where's the proof that the Vortex Bottle, or any other packaging changes, has any impact on flavor whatsoever?

Here's a novel idea: Try making money at doing business by actually improving the product. Are you afraid of a "New Coke" debacle? Even Coca-Cola rebounded from that to again dominate its market. But there's a difference: Coca-Cola took a gamble and changed its core formula, and while many taste-testers enjoyed the new taste the company still buckled to public pressure and re-introduced its old formula, leading Coca-Cola Classic to dominate its younger sibling, Coke II (New Coke). But it originally offered a likable product - Miller's not as lucky.

Going from utter crap to something a little more like real beer would be a good gamble, I don't care what the pee-drinkers say.