Wednesday’s ad is for Heineken, from the 1970s. In the later 1970s, Heineken embarked on a series of ads with the tagline “Heineken Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach.” Many of the ads were in a sequential panel, or comic strip, format and they were intended to be humorous.
In this ad, a three-panel format, drawn by cartoonist Don Martin, who was best known for his work in MAD Magazine, a chef looks tired, as evidenced by his hat falling limp behind his head, so he’s drinking a mug of beer. Which — FWOT! — makes his hat stand up stiffly at attention. But in the last panel, once he’s removed his hat, his hair is standing up too, with a part down the center. So that’s where the changed text comes in: it’s not “parts,” but “partings” in this ad. Unfortunately, this was the best resolution of the ad I could find.
