Miller64 is taking aim at 80-calorie Bud Light NEXT with a clever commercial. A recent survey found 7% of Americans thought 80 was a smaller number than 64, so Miller64 enlisted Ken Ono, a world-renowned mathematician and current Thomas Jefferson Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, to explain in a new commercial that 64 is a smaller number.
Bud Light NEXT doesn’t claim to have the fewest calories and specifically denies it’s made for people who are dieting. Its marketing pitch is that it has zero carbs. Miller64 has 64 calories and two carbs. Miller64 has cleverly set up a strawman. None the less it’s an enjoyable commercial.
Ono currently serves as the section chair for mathematics at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is an expert in number theory. He’s published over 200 research articles and was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering by a former president, among many other awards. Despite these accolades, Ken Ono still had questions about why 7% of Americans think 80 is smaller than 64.
When asked to solve this particular equation, Ken Ono stated, “I’ve seen a lot of complicated mathematical equations in my career, and worked to solve some of the most complex integer partitions and modular forms, but what I can’t understand is why anyone would think 80 is smaller than 64? I can confirm, 64 is most certainly smaller than 80.”