Dos Equis: Portraying the New "Perfect Man"

The Dos Equis beer "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign depicts a new portrayal of the ideal man.  While most beer commercials portray their customers as being amiable oafs who are only concerned about partying, Dos Equis portrays a different beer drinker.  Instead of a young party-animal, the man in the Dos Equis commercials is an older, suave and dignified man.  By proclaiming this man to be "the most interesting man in the universe", Dos Equis makes the bold assertion that the perfect man, contrary to all the other beer commercials' depictions, is a man whose wise, debonair, and taciturn.

 The first part of the commercial describes the many achievements of the "most interesting man in the world".  (My favorite one is, "He lives vicariously...through himself".)  While these descriptions are humorous and seemingly nonsensical, they also help illustrate the fact that the best man in the world is a renaissance man who does not only strive to be a womanizing, beer-chugging goofball.  The commercial does not imply that one can actually be exactly like this man because, simply put, he is perfect.  Rather, they want their consumers to take on some of the man's characteristics and revolutionize the stereotype of beer drinkers.  For example, by portraying the man as being well-groomed and collected with woman draped around him (he isn't trying to woo them like the other men in beer commercials and instead has the women come to him), Dos Equis makes the claim that men who drink their beer should be the life of the party through other means; they should impress others through their interesting personalities and noteworthy achievements instead of through their childish antics.  It's also interesting to note that the "interesting" man himself says that he doesn't always drink beer.  By having the perfect role model state this, Dos Equis implies that it does not want the average beer-drinker to always consume 12 beers a night.  Rather, moderation is optimal and can help you become like the perfect man.

The next set of Dos Equis commercials have the interesting man giving pieces of advice to the viewer:

Specifically, in this commercial, the "most interesting man in the world" makes an ostensible claim to not pick a job that doesn't match your skill set.  This statement holds more weight than expected, as people still manage to get trapped in unappealing and difficult jobs.  With these abridged commercials, Dos Equis proves that the typical beer drinker should be wise and pragmatic.