Wednesday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1938. 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, just six years after the repeal of prohibition, the brewers had formed a trade organization, the United Brewers Industrial Foundation in an effort to promote themselves as not just good brewers, but also as good citizens. You do start to see the logo pop up in member’s advertising after this point, so at least some made the effort. I don’t think it was overly effective, however, and they seemed to try several different advertising strategies over the next few years. It also doesn’t seem like the best of names, either. I wonder who thought “Industrial Foundation” sounded like a name consumer would respond positively to?
