From product-branded videos on YouTube, to interactive games big beer and alcohol companies are spending a lot of dough entertaining potential customers online. This week, the Wall Street Journal spent some time documenting [1] how Miller Brewing Company is also using the web to manipulate the news. As the article points out, the company's "Brew" Blog [2], reads like it could be one guy's blog about beer. In actuality, it is a useful an example of the way Big Alcohol enjoys toying with it's audience online.

Although it mentions its Miller affiliation at the top of the page, "Brew" Blog also adopts an objective tone, calling itself a "daily stop on the Web for beer industry market analysis." But "Brew" Blog's true purpose is to razz Miller's primary competition, Anheuser-Busch. The site tracks the company's every move, and harps on nearly every superficial detail of A-B's business practices, while offering glowing analysis of Miller. Much of the site's "reporting" has also led to articles in the mainstream media. But it does not challenge A-B, or any other company, on the larger, industry-wide practices that, say, make alcohol accessible to young people or manipulate their audiences with, um, deceptive or misleading media practices. Mysterious, isn't it?