Tuesday’s ad is for is by the United Brewers Industrial Foundation, from the late 1930s. Beginning during World War II, the USBIF began a series of positive ads under the name “Morale is a Lot of Little Things” followed by an unnumbered series of illustrated ads that were a precursor to the numbered “Home Life in America,” the crown jewel of ads which ran from 1945 to 1956, also known as the Beer Belongs series. But they didn’t end there, and for a short time afterward, beginning in 1956, several more similar ads were created but without the numbering or the “Home Life in America” association. But even before those efforts, the UBIF put their toe in the trade advertising pond with ads under the title “The Record … Facts That Concern You” and always ending with the tagline “Beer … a beverage of moderation.”
In this ad, with the headline “One Sour Note,” they’re making the case that just because you might find one unscrupulous beer retailer that they’re not all bad and you shouldn’t paint the entire industry as bad because of that one bad apple, all using the analogy of many musicians making up the sound in an orchestra.
