I saw yet another Bud-lite ad touting "drinkability." *Sigh* I'm starting to doubt the judgment of the folks who declined to send me a pet monkey. (Long story)
According to Merriam Webster,
drinkable means "suitable or safe for drinking." (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drinkability) Yum. Now I know that in a world of calorie cutting and cost cutting, we cannot expect everything from a beer. (You can please some of the people all of the time . . . ) But are we really at the point where 'safe for human consumption' is something worth advertising? ('Golly, I'm sure glad my lite beer falls somewhere above minimum EPA standards.').
I googled "drinkability" to see what else is tagged with this superlative. One of the first hits was a Wired article about a new environmentally safe, biodegradeable motor oil. (http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/03/alms-gets-biode.html) That's right, the official motor oil of the American La Mans racing series also has drinkability. Has InBev been cutting costs by merging it's R&D teams? ('Hey Hans, imagine if we could produce a pale yellow liquid that we can use to lubricate race car engines and feed to American beer drinkers . . . ').
Perhaps another top hit in my google search captures the problem well. As the folks at Advertising Age Magazine put it, "watery" and "tasteless" were probably discarded immediately. "Better than nothing" doesn't really do it. So Budweiser was left with a quality that is both arguably true and non-self-defeating. They chose: "drinkability."
