I saw a recent Sam Adams commercial where the key message was: Sam Adams is still a small beer brewery. They even touted that they are only 0.5% of the beer market – it felt a little odd, sort of like a television show announcing that they were last in the ratings.

But as a marketing professional I totally understood what they were doing – they want to make clear that they are not generic and mass produced, and that they give a damn about the beer they make.

Remember when conventional advertising wisdom was to boast about yourself, tell the world that you are the biggest and the best? It wasn’t that long ago, but nowadays being considers a “big” company and certainly the “biggest” is a definite negative in most industries.

I guess we love underdogs, and we have come to envision that the “biggest” companies out there are just uncaring, unfeeling corporate factories mass producing junk products and raking in profits.

No point here, except I think it is a good notion for consumers to be skeptical of the “big” guys, hopefully it keeps them paying attention and at least trying to care about their product and customers. But much more importantly it keeps open the opportunity for all the true artisan operations out there to sell their craft. Oh, and I guess it also leaves some room for the “small” guys like $500-million -a-year Sam Adams.