Tuesday’s ad is a 1898 ad for a New York brewery, Geo. Ringler & Co. It’s actually a calendar poster, which was common for beer advertising during the time period. But since it’s Flag Day, and she’s wrapped in a flag, it seemed an appropriate one for today.
Monday’s ad is a 1942 ad for Ballantine Ale. It was the first full year that we were involved in World War 2, so it’s decidedly patriotic. The tagline is “How American it is … to want something better!” I like the simplicity of the ad, just a single beer bottle.
This week’s work of art is by a Scottish artist, John Quinton Pringle, who around 1904 painted Study of a Head, which is also known as Man With a Drinking Mug.
Here’s how the National Gallery of Scotland, where the painting is hung, describes Pringle and the work:
Pringle trained as an optician in 1874 and ran his own business as optician and electrician from 1896 to 1923. He used his shop as a studio after hours painting predominantly small canvases, like this painting. From around 1895 he developed an interest in French Impressionism, which influenced this work. This is one of three portraits Pringle made of an elderly man who frequented the Saltmarket area of Glasgow and visited the artist in his shop. The sitter was nicknamed ‘Kruger’ due to his supposed likeness to Paul Kruger, the Boer resistance leader and president of the Transvaal republic in South Africa. The painting is thought to date from 1904 – it is signed and dated but Pringle’s style makes it difficult to read.
You can read Pringle’s biography at Wikipedia and see a few more of his paintings at the WikiGallery and there are links to even more of his paintings at ArtCyclopedia.
Our 72nd Guinness ad is again from the “Guinness For Strength” series, with a fisherman reeling in a whale-sized fish, presumably thanks to the pint of Guinness sitting next to his chair. The fish looks every bit as surprised, even a little scared, as the dog and the fisherman.
And here’s a slightly different variation of the ad.
Friday’s ad is a 1957 ad for Budweiser. It’s yet another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series. This one shows a striking woman dressed in a white shawl (or at least hood) in bright light being poured a Budweiser. She’s staring longingly into, presumably, the eyes of the pourer.
Thursday’s ad is a 1960 ad for Budweiser. It’s yet another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series. In the ad, apparently the sound of beer being poured into a glass is enough to turn her head fast enough that her hair flips around and the expression on her face screams “surprise!”
Thanks to Angelo from Brewpublic, who posted a link to this on Facebook. A couple of days ago, the humor paper The Onion posted the hilarious picture below in their News in Photos section with the headline Samuel Adams Apologizes For ‘Boston Sucks’ Pilsner.
According to a short item today in CNN Money, “[a]lcohol sales climbed with little interruption throughout the recent recession, and have continued to expand in recent months.”
Over the last, for the period ending May 31st, “[a]lcoholic beverage sales grew by nearly 10%,” according to the financial information company Sageworks. During that same period of time, “the average unemployment rate during that time exceeded 9.3%.”
Sales expanded more than 9% in 2008, the first full year of the recession, when the average unemployment rate was 5.8%. Sales slumped dramatically the following year, but were still 1% higher, as the unemployment rate shot up to about 9.3%.
In 2010, sales jumped more than 9% as unemployment grew to 9.6%.
The only other industry showing similar growth is apparently health care. Sageworks analyst Sam Zippin quipped that apart from “going to the doctor, [alcohol] is another need to have.” By which I assume he means there are only two certainties during a recession, that people will either get sick or drink. And the article concedes that the old saw about beer being recession-proof “appears to be true.”
Except that Esther Kwon, who’s identified as “an alcohol industry analyst for Standard & Poor’s, says just the opposite, stating “I wouldn’t say it’s recession proof. People will buy less and they will move to different venues, meaning moving to home instead of a bar. But people will continue to drink, regardless.” Um, maybe she’s been misquoted, but isn’t that contradictory? I’m not trying to pick a fight with Kwon, but I just don’t quite understand her point. I agree with her statement that “people will continue to drink, regardless,” and that to save money, many will choose to drink it at home. But concluding from that information that alcohol isn’t recession-proof doesn’t seem to logically follow or make any sense to me.
Where they buy their alcohol, or where they drink it, has no bearing on how much people buy, apart from the price they pay. And if it’s cheaper to drink at home, that would mean they could actually buy more, doesn’t it? And if the sales growth of all alcohol companies is up nearly 10% that would likewise suggest that people are not just continuing to drink, but are drinking more. It’s a simple ipso facto, isn’t it? There’s a recession. People are drinking (or at least buying) more. Ipso facto. What am I missing that would cause a so-called “beverage analyst” to conclude otherwise?
That confusion aside, this is more good news for the craft beer industry, as within the beer industry, that’s the segment that’s showing the most growth by a very wide margin. In fact, it’s practically the only segment showing strong growth.
With Father’s day less than two weeks away, I thought I’d share this fun project done by the folks at Every Guyed, where they designed eight beer can dads.
Here’s the idea:
To celebrate Father’s Day, EveryGuyed and Moxy Creative House have teamed up once again to deliver the second installment of the ‘Cheers!’. This time we had creative director Glenn Michael raise a glass — and his brush — to 8 iconic animated dads, re-envisioning them as beer cans.
When you were a kid, Father’s Day was a pretty boring affair. Now you’re of age, and all of a sudden you have the chance to do something with your dad that he’ll actually enjoy: share a cold one together.
See if you can guess all of the cartoon dads. The answers are below, just under the slideshow, where you can see the eight individuals posters for each beer can dad.
Now I want my own dad can. What would yours look like?
You can even buy any of the prints as a poster at Moxy Creative House.
Wednesday’s ad is a 1956 ad for Budweiser. It’s another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series that was common in the late 1950s. The ad shows a can of Budweiser Lager Beer, freshly poured. Is it just me, or this ad just one big double entendre? Between the look on the guy’s face, who just poured the beer, and the woman bending down, who looks as if she’s about to kiss the head … something’s going on there. Or am I reading too much into that?
