Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1950. Part of there series of “There’s nothing like it” ads, this one shows a couple on a fishing trip, by canoe, stopping for a picnic lunch. Their lunch, including the cans of Budweiser were in a cool-looking red metal Budweiser cooler.
Friday’s ad is for Budweiser, from their “Where there’s life …” series, probably from the 1950s or early 60s. The scene shows a smiling and way-too-shiny-faced couple on the beach, having a weenie roast, while the woman pours a can of Bud into an already full mug.
Wednesday’s ad is a Ladies Home Journal (LHJ) ad from 1904 for Budweiser. It’s an interesting ad. First of all, check out the cage and cork on a Bud bottle. That’s not something you see every day. And the endorsement by LHJ is priceless. Can you imagine this today?
Mr. Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, in a page article in the May issue gives a list of 36 medicines, with official analysis, asserting them to contain 12 to 47 per cent. of Alcohol!
The ad goes to suggest the reader think of beer, with a mere 2 to 5 percent, is nothing compared to many of the medicines that mothers might give their child, some of which are “stronger than whisky.” At this point, Budweiser suggests that their beer is much healthier even than water with its low alcohol content.
Budweiser contains only 3-89/100 per cent. of alcohol. It is better than pure water because of the nourishing qualities of malt and the tonic properties of hops.
Budweiser is pre-eminently a family beverage; its use promotes the cause of true temperance—it guards the safety of health and home.
Now that’s a beautiful sentiment.
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!
Friday’s ad is a 1960 ad for Budweiser cans, showing the “Smart way to buy Bud … Pick a Pair.” The ads shows a housewife, oddly backlit, picking up a six-pack of Bud cans.
Wednesday’s ad is a pre-war 1937 ad for Budweiser. A stylized pin-up fortune teller is peering into her crystal ball containing a crystal beer. Seeing the Budweiser, she declares “I see you have excellent taste.” See, I knew those fortune tellers were fakes.
Friday’s ad, in honor of the St. Louis Cardinal’s world series victory earlier tonight, is a Budweiser ad that appeared on the Cardinals scorecard in 1954. With the tagline “Fans Who KNow … Buy Bud,” the scene is a baseball game in the late 1800s. I love the block of ice sitting on top of the wooden keg to keep the beer cold.
Monday’s ad is from 1957, and is for Budweiser, from their “Where There’s Life … There’s Bud” series. The woman playing cards has at least a king of hearts but she’s more interested in watching the beer being poured over her Ray-Bans to worry about concealing her cards. It is a nice looking pour, but doesn’t it look like if he doesn’t stop right now — and it doesn’t look the bottle’s anywhere near empty — it going to start pouring over the edge of the glass.
Friday’s ad is from 1963, and is for Budweiser cans, specifically six-packs of cans. You gotta love the sixties fashion and that hairdo. Doesn’t she look happy picking up two six-packs?
Thursday’s ad is from 1968 and is for Budweiser. The ad copy claims that there were 332 beer brands being sold in 1968. Now that’s “brands,” not breweries, because there weren’t nearly that many different breweries in operation then. According to USBA figures, there were 197 U.S. breweries in 1965, but only 154 in 1970, just five years later. So the number in 1968 would have been somewhere in between that period of time when 43 breweries closed. The ad itself shows quite a number of Budweiser’s competitors at the time, claiming — naturally — that only their beer was “beechwood aged.” I recognize many of the labels shown, though a few — like Dawson and Van Dyke — I’ve never heard of before. Still, you’ve got to be pretty confident in your market share to show your competitors’ labels in your own ad.
