Monday’s ad is another modern series by Budějovický Budvar — one of two original Budweisers — known in the U.S. as Czechvar. The ad campaign features four simple ads, one for each of the primary ingredients of beer: barley, hops, water and yeast. I don’t know what any of the text says, but I love the simplicity of them.
Our sixteenth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is a “Guinness For Strength” one, with a farmer, who’s presumably just down a Guinness, is pulling the horse cart while the horse rides in the cart, looking very satisfied.
Friday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale from — I’m just guessing — the 1950s, and is attempting to show the beer as high class, upscale even with the cocktail dress and morning coat. The slogan, “Ballantine Ale begins where other brews leave off … in flavor … in satisfaction!,” is one they used frequently. There’s another one, down below that’s pretty interesting. Just above the bottle and can, it reads. “The LIGHT ale that’s strong on flavor.” Obviously, that was before low-calorie light beers. It most likely was to combat competition from lighter color lagers.
Thursday’s ad is from the 1930s and is part of a series of pin-ups done for San Francisco’s Acme Brewing by one of the most famous pin-up artists ever. George Petty is probably one of a handful of well-known pin-up artists who also made the transition to commercial and mainstream work. Some of his most famous work was done for Esquire magazine, where he worked from 1933 to 1956. The women he painted had a look that was dubbed “the Petty Girl.” You can see more examples at the Pin-Up Page, BPIB and the Pin-Up Files.
Today’s Petty ad was part of the Dietetically Non-Fattening series, which Brewery Gems describes.
In the mid ’30s Acme came up with a brilliant marketing concept directed at an untapped market – women. It advertised its beer as “Dietetically Non-Fattening,” and following the asterisks, the fine print says: “Relatively so, compared with other foods.”
This caused the Federal Trade Commission, who was devoted to fair practices in advertising, to move against Acme Breweries. However, it took until 1951 for the Commission’s decision that the words “Acme beer contains no fattening substances and will not increase consumer’s weight” was still considered a “deceptive nutritional claim,” so Acme dropped the advertising campaign, but by then they had doubled their capacity and captured nearly 50% of the California beer market.
Petty apparently painted three works for Acme Beer, the other two are below.
Petty’s Cowgirl.
Petty’s Reclining Lady.
Wednesday’s ad is from 1946 and is a beautiful painting of two people fishing. It’s for Miller High Life and is surprisingly uncluttered for the time period. It looks like the fisherman got his hook caught in the woman’s shorts, which is pretty funny in an odd way.
Tuesday’s ad is from 1906 and is for Van Nostrand’s Owl-Musty, whatever that means. Presumably, the beer was called Owl-Musty but that doesn’t strike me as a particularly appetizing sounding name.The brewery is Bunker Hill Breweries, located in Charlestown, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1821 and folded in 1918, 12 years after this ad ran.
Monday’s ad is one I don’t know much about, but chose it because it’s National Pretzel Day. The French translates as something like “pretzel singer with beer and wine.” I’m not even sure it’s for a brewery, it seems like it may be for a bar or restaurant instead. It’s most likely from 1920s France.
Our fifteenth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is a balancing act, as a seal balances a bottle of Guinness on his nose while his exasperated trainer looks on. It’s also another ad using the “My Goodness, My Guinness” slogan.
Friday’s ad closes strange glances week with a 1957 ad for National Bohemian. The ad’s tagline is “Wet, Cold and Delicious … just the way you want your beer.” The woman in the bathing cap, popping up out of the water at the side of the pool is likewise certainly wet, possibly cold though I’m touching that last one. Still, I think it’s fair to assume that it was their unspoken plan to suggest that connection. Then there’s that hilariously odd sideways glance as she eyes the beer bottle.
If you want to see a larger size ad, there is one here, though the text is cropped.
Thursday’s ad during strange glances week also a 1958 ad, this time for Budweiser, under their campaign “Where there’s life .. there’s Bud.” Mr fix-it watches intently as his wife pours his beer from a can into a pilsner glass. What I can’t quite understand is how use fix a telephone with a hammer. There’s also an odd bit of text there, right next to the hammer.
THE KING’S CREDENTIALS: The King of Beers prints its ingredients right on the label. Know of any other beer that does?
Was that really such a bold claim in 1958? I think I was under the impression that most, if not all, beer labels contain at least the primary ingredients on them, but perhaps that’s a more recent development. Since there are only four, I wouldn’t think that would be a point of differentiation. But maybe then most people didn’t know what the ingredients were, or that they were virtually identical from beer to beer.
