[user104658]

Bots has this right way back at the beginning of the thread; it wasn't so much the advertising used, it was the clear statement from the company high-ups of intent.

I.e. They said "We don't really like our existing customer base and want to try to move into a different space". Inevitably, if you tell a customer base they're not your target any more, some of those people are going to say "OK fine bye".

The problem though is that the new market they wanted to target isn't interested. No amount ifbtargetr d advertising is going to make them like the product; they dont want to drink these light mainstream beers. It's the wrong market entirely.

So the net result is a bigger loss of customers than gain of new customers.

Taking all the motion out of it, it was just a really terrible business decision.