Wednesday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1941. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.
In this ad, two couples are having a picnic in the woods, with this great headline. “In a hurrying, scurrying world there’s serenity in beer and ale.” And I love how the pitch the need for “serenity” with this text. “YES! It’s a busy, dizzy world in which we live! And every man and woman in it needs now and then to get away from it all. Needs to sit down quietly and shut out the din and noise for a peaceful hour or so.” And naturally, they suggest drinking a beer during your time off. And I suppose every generation thinks their time is the busiest in human history, but I have to believe things were fairly slow in 1941 compared to now. And this ad was about four months before we entered World War 2. I have a hard time believing it was as hurrying and scurrying as they seemed to think.
