High Noon Just Had the Most Millennial Ad Ever

Whether it’s dude-bros on their night out without their wives, hardworking and quintessential country folk or The Most Interesting Man in the World, creating a desirable character and storyline is a strategy that’s been tried and true for alcohol brands.

This is why High Noon’s “May Your Day Be Sunny” was a sure-fire creative concept for the hard seltzer company. 

While other alcohol brands rely heavily on painting the picture of who their consumers could be if they consumed their product, High Noon showed their consumers how their product supports their lifestyles. By creating an ad centered around a carefree and platonic group of millennials who are “trying to adult” while also enjoying their summer, they’ve perfectly identified their largest consumer demographic. 

In the ad, the noble liquor store clerk consecrates the young group's summer with “May everyone respond to your group text, even Derek, who never has his phone with him.” High Noon is identifying common traits in millennials, such as being tuned to what’s going on around them, and their desire to go with the flow and take things as they come.

When he says, “May watching all those barbeque tutorials actually pay off,” they’re speaking to millenials’ desire to achieve certain cultural attributes like exceptionalism and adventurousness.

When he says, “May you know someone who knows someone who has a boat,” they’re normalizing that millennials are far less likely to have achieved life milestones than Generation Xers and baby boomers had at their age.

What’s most impressive about this ad is product advertising usually has to pick between being heavily targeted or heavily creative, but rarely is equally both.

High Noon has not only managed to segment millennials and hit nearly every trend and insight reported on the generation, but they were also pretty subtle about it–and funny.

Though clever, this wasn’t as much of a gamble for the hard seltzer brand as it would’ve been for a different product. Hard seltzer consumers are almost entirely millennials, with High Noon’s competitor, White Claw, being the third most frequently purchased alcoholic beverage among the generation in August of 2020. Beer or liquor brands have wider demographics so they can’t hyper-target based on age alone as hard seltzer brands can.

High Noon also has millennials' curiosity on their side. 60% of millennials reported enjoying trying new things, meaning they’re open to picking up new products based on interesting packaging or branding elements. High Noon just needed to be interesting for millennials to make the purchase.