Monday’s ad is for Schlitz from 1957. It was part of their Schlitzerland ad campaign, one of my absolute favorites by any brewery. I just love the artwork. And the baseball theme seemed appropriate as we just watched game 5 of the World Series. So come on, “Be a Schlitzer. Be refreshed.”
While searching for more information about yesterday’s featured artist for my Beer In Art series, I discovered a second artist named Ben Sanders, this one working as an illustrator in Australia. Perhaps more importantly, he’s actually worked on a campaign to reduce drunk driving down under. The campaign, sponsored by the Motor Accident Commission, was designed to try and reduce drunk driving in the rural areas of southern Australia. Called Prevent Mate Morphosis, it employs a device you’d never see used by our own government and especially not by the neo-prohibitionists: irreverent humor.
Here’s how they describe the campaign:
Just like on the footy field, mateship is the glue that unites regional communities.
Mates look out for mates — it’s a big part of the Aussie culture. And they’d never intentionally do anything that would cause us harm. It’s just that sometimes, our mates can turn into blokes who, let’s just say, make bad decisions. Especially on the roads.
In this advertising campaign we’ve come up with a new name for this change in a mate’s behaviour. We’re calling it “Matemorphosis” — when your mate gets behind the wheel and morphs into a knob.
They continue by saying it’s “For Country People, By Country People:”
This is the first road safety campaign that’s specifically made for country South Australians, by country South Australians. The TV ads don’t use actors, but real people from different regions across SA and were filmed at Callington Football Club oval.
The campaign acknowledges that too many deaths occur on our roads because country roads are different to anywhere else. We all know we can’t change where we drive, but we can change how we drive. And the campaign makes the point that it’s up to all of us to make country roads safer.
But they sure seem like they’d get your attention far more effectively because they stop and make you think. Then they make you laugh, which in my mind would make them more memorable, as well.
Obviously, not all the idioms would translate to American English, but surely we could come up with equally effective and equally funny ones. Not that the folks in MADD and their ilk would, or even could, embrace any strategy that might involve humor. They’d undoubtedly complain that you can’t make light of so serious a problem. But if it furthers their supposed goal of reducing drunk driving, it really shouldn’t matter how the message is communicated, so long as it’s effective. Frankly, I’ve always believed you’d get a lot further being reasonable and human than constantly hammering the same serious propaganda.
And below is one of the billboards in action. I’d much rather see this on the road than a frying pan with an egg in it telling me that’s my brain or a needle sticking out of a bottle of beer equating it to heroin. Such heavy-handed imagery doesn’t work because it doesn’t ring true. It looks like propaganda because it is propaganda. Maybe a little humor would be better? It’s making me laugh … and pay attention.
This week’s works of art are part of a series of “beer portraits” by a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, where he studied illustration & design. Ben Sanders lives in Los Angeles, where since graduating in 2009, he’s been involved in “a number of projects that include Illustration, Graphic Design, Large Scale Painting, Sign Painting, Sculpture, Book Design, and Book Binding.” There are nine paintings currently in the series, of which these are my favorites:
Orval
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Chimay
You can see the rest of the six paintings in the series at Sanders’ website and some of his non-beer work at his gallery.
While I don’t put any stock in astrology, in 1980 Guinness put out a calendar with each month representing one of the zodiac signs, and I thought it would be fun to share these throughout the year.
Scorpio, the scorpion, is from October 23-November 22. To learn more, see:
Our 90th Guinness ad is a sports-themed one with, naturally, the familiar slogan “Guinness for Strength.” The Guinness rugby player, presumably bolstered by his drinking Guinness, is running for a score wile keeping the entire opposing team at arms length — literally.
Friday’s ad is a brewery industry PSA from 1941, brought to you by the United States Brewers Foundation. After Prohibition, the beer industry was sensitive to the fact that prohibitionists sentiments did not magically melt away with the passage of the 21st Amendment and produced a number of ads portraying beer as “America’s Beverage of Moderation” and other positive associations. You’ve got to love ad copy that begins “In a hurrying, scurrying world there’s serenity in beer and ale.” Now that’s a picnic I want to go on!
Here’s a fun video about craft beer’s struggles to get to market. With a hat tip to Brian Stechschulte at Bay Area Craft Beer, it’s a student film by a Michael Jolly, done for his “Motion Graphics class. It’s an animated info graphic concerning American Craft Beer. I created all artwork, narration, and animation myself. Hope you enjoy it…And drink craft beer!” He’s titled it: Craft Beer: A True Underdog Story.
Thursday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale and is — I’m guessing here — from the late 1940s-50s given that that was the time when bowling was king. The ad shows a cutaway of a bowling alley, with the bar at the right, and seemingly every person there having either a ball or a beer in their hand. You have to love a sport where drinking is not only allowed, but encouraged. And how about that lovely poem?
A cheery chatter at the Alleys tonight;
The pins are flying left and right.
The “Beer frame” next … everyone agrees,
Ballantine, waiter, over here, please!
We’ve learned long since this beer will hold
Its flavor even when when ice cold!
A-a-h! that deep-brewed flavor chill can’t kill—
Another round? Of course we will!
Wednesday’s ad is for New York City’s Knickerbocker Beer, from 1955. Showing a towering Knickerbocker above the skyscrapers, wearing colonial garb, and handing a pilsner glass of beer. I’d be afraid not to take it. And how about that slogan, “less filling … more delicious, too!” That sounds awfully similar to another slogan for a lighter beer, doesn’t it?
Tuesday’s ad is a third Schlitz ad from 1954, and it’s very similar to the last two Schlitz ads. It also uses the slogan “If you like beer you’ll love Schlitz,” though this time a really, really happy-looking man with a huge smile — most likely a grocery clerk — is holding a six-pack of Schlitz cans as if to hand them off to a waiting customer. He looks a little bit like a very young, though slightly less skinny, Frank Sinatra.
