Our 103rd Guinness ad is obviously a tie-in Guinness did with the Edinburgh Zoo, which makes sense since so many of the animals featured in their early advertising were zoo animals, and even often included a zookeeper, too. The animals in the first ad look more like they did in the iconic ads.
In the second, a different artist, named Price it appears, took a more cartoony approach, and while they’re the same aniumals, they don’t have the same look to them.
Friday’s ad is for Schlitz, also from 1962. It’s from their “Real Gusto” campaign, and in this one a man with a crewcut is downing his beer, while holding a sandwich in one hand.
Thursday’s ad is for Miller High Life, also from 1962. It’s a very fake-looking western setting, just a studio with a few props — a wagon, fence and saddle. Couldn’t they have done the same shot at an actual farm or even better, a cattle ranch? Our “cowboy,” mug of beer in hand, is looking down at his new boots as the little filly on the other side if the fence looks on. I’m just not buying it.
We all know good labels, packaging and artwork can help a beer sell. I may not like that a mediocre beer might sell better than a great one if it has more eye-catching artwork, but it happens all the time. It was especially true in the early days of craft beer when many people who were passionate about the beer they were making believed that was enough. They thought all they had to do was make great beer, and people would buy it. And so a lot of good breweries failed for no better reason than they weren’t good businesspeople, as well as good brewers. These days, as we close in on the 2,000th American brewery, most brewers now understand they have to do something to get noticed on the shelf. Good beer in the bottle or can will undoubtedly keep people buying your beer, but you have to get them to try it first. And so most at least try to be clever, artistic or interesting with their packaging. If they have the means, they hire inventive, capable people and agencies to help them.
As an unabashed art lover, a great label or package will impress me. As I’ve said, the beer inside ultimately has to deliver, but great art is an all but necessary first step. That said, I recently came across some of the most impressive new art for a beer I’ve seen in a long time. It’s for an Australian beer I’d never heard of, which makes sense since it’s brand new. It’s a new, separate brewery launched by the Melbourne brewery Little Creatures. It’s located in Healesville in the Yarra Valley, in Victoria, which is in the southeast corner of the continent of Australia. Victoria is the smallest Australian state and Melbourne is its capital.
The name of the brewery is the White Rabbit Brewery. (Note: their website was up and running yeasterday, but today is not.) The Facebook page, however, is working. The design for the beer that a design agency, BrainCells, came up with is just brilliant. This was their mission:
Little Creatures Brewing in 2009 commissioned the White Rabbit Brewery in the Yarra Valley Victoria. The new initiative is focused on delivering a unique dark ale using traditional European open fermenters that bring mysterious wild yeast character into play. brainCELLS was asked to develop the brand look and feel representative of the product, the region, and the eccentricity of the process.
I may be biased, I love rabbits. Always have. I’ve owned a few as pets over my lifetime. And it also doesn’t hurt that I love the works of Lewis Carroll, have a daughter named “Alice,” and my son’s first stuffed animal was a white bunny named “bunny” I bought him his first week (and which is still his favorite). Truth be told, my first stuffed animal when I was a kid was also a rabbit, but it had a much more embarrassing name, one that no amount of beer will ever ply from my lips.
Still, it’s such a beautiful scene, with the white rabbit jumping through the hop forest. It looks great on the six-pack carrier and the bottle, as well. If you look closely, you can see the rabbit is in a different spot on the bottle than the side of the sixer.
And below is the packaging for the white ale, which is ironically a night setting, while the dark ale is a daytime scene.
Even the glassware is cool, using a clever, and simple, two-fingered rabbit hand as a logo. It’s one that’s immediately recognizable.
I sure hope they paid as much attention to the beer as the design for the packaging. If the beer is even half as good as the artwork, it should be terrific beer. If anyone in Australia wants to send me some of the beer, or can tell me how to get some, I would be a very happy camper. I am loving the White Rabbit.
Wednesday’s ad is another one for Budweiser, this time from 1962. Showing a half-dozen men of varying ages out for a night of bowling — league night, no doubt — and also drinking a few beers “between frames.” It seems likes everybody was in a bowling league in the 1950s through the 1970s. My Mom was, I was as a kid. It was always fun. I also had a girlfriend briefly in high school who loved bowling — she was on the school’s team — and so spent a lot of time bowling with her, too.
There was a book a few years ago, Bowling Alone, that was all about how people no longer go out and do things in their community, instead just stay in and watch TV. It used the popularity of bowling and its recent slide as a metaphor for the collapse of the American community. It was an interesting idea, I only read part of it, but liked what I read. Hmm, I think I need to go bowling again, and soon.
Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1961. The very-red ad shows a greasy-haired bartender in uniform, handing you a glass of Budweiser. There’s a bowl of popcorn on the bar and a Bud lamp on the wall behind. The ad is part of A-B’s long-running “where there’s life … there’s Bud” campaign, showing their beer in a variety of settings. One thing I’m starting to notice is how unusual the glassware is in so many of the ads of this time period. I’m so used to the ubiquitous pint or shaker glass, but I can’t say when it became the standard bar glass. I spent a lot of time in bars as a kid in the late 1960s and 1970s (I had an alcoholic stepfather) and I can’t say I remember there being much in the way of unusual glassware, though I was young and not paying that close attention, so there’s that to consider.
Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, also from 1960. The ad was suggesting that instead of staying home to watch the big horse races, that tavern keepers instead invite you “Come and Watch the Races.” It looks to me like the couple drinking Schlitz must have won their race, they look so happy.
Today’s work of art is by the prolific French artist Edouard Manet, and this is the fourth time I”ve featured a beer-themed work of art by him. This one is a pastel created in 1878. It’s known as Two Women Drinking Bocks. Today, the original is part of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland.
It’s one of his lesser-known works and I’ve been unable to find much specific information about it. But’s a beautifully intimate portrait of a simple scene; two friends sharing a beer. And I love the way the piece is pulled together with the bright blue color that seems to glow, both on the women’s clothing and the stripes on the wall.
To learn more about Edouard Manet, you can start with Wikipedia and there’s also a nice biography at the Impressionniste. The Art Archive or the ArtCyclopedia are both good places to see more of his work. Also the Edouard Manet Gallery purports to have a complete gallery of his works, as does WikiPaintings.
Our 102nd Guinness ad harkens back to a bygone era, when knights in shining armor battled fire-breathing dragons to rescue damsels in distress. When it’s really from, I have no idea. But when St. George prepares to battle the dragon in the distance, his squire first brings him pint of Guinness. “Guinness For Strength” reads the tagline and, somewhat humorously, a smaller dragon is also bringing the big dragon a pint of Guinness, too. Still, my money’s on St. George.
Friday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1960. They seemed to focus on this nostalgia theme around that time, as if the 1890s or so was the best time ever for beer. I doubt that’s true, but it’s usually safe to make such a claim when few people who lived then are still around to compare or disagree. Anyone who was 20, and drinking beer, in 1890 would have been 90 in 1960. And the goofy expression with the sandwich in one hand, holding a beer up to his lips is priceless.
