Lager is one of those funny products where it is as much about the image of the product as it is about the taste, which is why lager brands spend incredibe sums of money on trying to make their brand cool.
If successful, clever marketeers can make people think their beer tastes good, even when it doesn't. The above ads are simple, but cool - CDs and pizza boxes. Heineken like to promote themselves as premium lager and stylised communications help them do this.
Coors Light is a great example of where a lager has decided its strategy should be to make everyone think of mountains, fresh air, and the cold whenever they see it. "The Taste of the Rockies" has no real factual basis to it - its brewed in Burton! However, if you ask someone to describe what its like with a couple of adjectives they will almost definitely say light, cold, and refreshing.
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I think this is especially true for bottled beer - When you're at a bar and picking a bottle of beer, you choosing to align yourself with a particular brand - 'I am a peroni drinker' or 'I'm a becks drinker'. It's often more about the image than the taste, whether you realise it or not. And now lager brands are distinguising themselves more and more through the design of their pint glasses (tall Peroni glasses, stemmed Stella pints, frosted Coors glasses etc etc), so you get the same effect again.
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