Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day ad is for Budweiser. I’m not sure when the ad originally ran, but clearly it’s from a time when sensitivities toward Native Americans weren’t particularly keen. That’s based on the ad copy, which after the headline — “America’s Earliest Thanksgiving … Was For Corn” — is the following:
With joyous chants and throbbing tom-toms, the Indians celebrated each bountiful harvest of maize. How the red man would marvel to see the part his native grain plays in the nutrition and individual prosperity of modern America!
Later in the ad, the copy connects corn to “its neighbor, barley,” adding. “For, from America’s costliest barley comes Budweiser to adds its distinctive, delicious taste to the fine flavors that make such a world of difference between merely eating and really dining.” Curiously, no mention of rice, though.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
