Wilkins Coffee (which gave employment to a young Jim Henson before Sesame Street or The Muppet Show) was quite successful with its implication that people who don't drink Wilkins get shot and suffer other misfortunes. Maybe having puppets do it was just more charming.

https://youtu.be/HVewx3-9x24

Those seem pretty ordinary by beer commercial standards.

Advertising didn't kill Schlitz. They made some processing changes to their formula that caused a micro infection. Not sure, could have been Pediococcus. But they did it all at once, and ruined so many batches, that customers left and never came back.

That's not my read of the message of those ads at all.

See

Oh, Schlitz: How a Historic Ad Campaign Helped Kill America’s Biggest Beer Brand

https://vinepair.com/articles/schlitz-history-ad-campaign

I wonder if that type of article would exist if they had made good brewery decisions before launching the commercials. I mean they aren't great commercials, but I don't know I'd compare them to the unabomber or call it the brand killer. The brand was already killed, the commercials just weren't great.

If the brand had taken off and recovered the advertisers would claim "daring and powerful commercials that saved the brand" - the one thing they can't admit is that advertising isn't terribly effective.