Tuesday’s ad is yet another one for Double Diamond, also from the 1950s. Part of the Ind Coope’s “Works Wonders” series. I think it’s funny that “everybody” means a mailman, hunter, jack hammer operator and a dressed-up rich guy with his briefcase and umbrella. Yep, that’s pretty much all of us.
Monday’s ad is another one for Double Diamond, this time from 1949. Part of the Ind Coope’s “Works Wonders” series, this is a fairly simple, but beautiful looking ad. One think that’s off to me, however, is the color of the green glass. It appears more like that dull, light green of an old coke bottle, rather than the bright green glass used by Heineken, Beck’s and many others. Is that really what they looked like? I love some of the ad copy, too, especially when they explain how drinking a Double Diamond will “take the tension out of life, revives your confidence, puts you back on top of your form.” After reading that, I don’t just want a beer, I need one.
Sunday’s ad is for Double Diamond, from the 1950s. Part of the Ind Coope’s “Works Wonders” series, but I’m not sure this one was such a good idea. Suggesting that after a few beers, one might have the courage, and skill, to fight crime seems like a potential liability for the brewery. “But your honor, after a few beers, I just had to assert myself. I couldn’t let him get away with the swag.”
I love the Great British Beer Festival, and it’s a crying shame I don’t get over the pond often enough to attend it. Happily, Mark Dredge, who in addition to Pencil & Spoon, has been doing some work for Pilsner Urquell, had a camera crew follow him around the hall at the Great British Beer Festival. He’s created a short video giving a flavor of what it’s like to be there. So if, like me, you missed it this year, here’s at least a glimpse at what being there be like. Enjoy.
Happy “Independence Eve” everybody. If you’ve never heard of “Independence Eve,” that’s because Newcastle Brown Ale made it up. But it’s so brilliant, I’m going to start observing it, and maybe even will start a tradition of drinking a British ale every July 3. Perhaps even a Newcastle Brown Ale just to say thanks for this hilarious series of ads.
There’s maybe fifteen ads on YouTube or at the dedicated website Newcastle set up for the promotion: If We Won. The latest is below, though I’d encourage you to go back and watch them all. Here’s the most recent one, and they keep adding news ones every few hours.
And here’s another favorite one, with Britsh comedian and writer Stephen Merchant. There’s also ones with Elizabeth Hurley and Zachary Quinto. You can check out all fifteen (at last count) at Newcastle’s YouTube channel.
AdWeek has a story about the advertising campaign, Newcastle Ambushes July 4 by Inventing ‘Independence Eve,’ Celebrating British Rule The Redcoats Get Revenge. From the article:
British brands, understandably, don’t have much to say around the Fourth of July—until now. Newcastle Brown Ale, among the cheekiest of U.K. marketers, has turned America’s most patriotic holiday to its advantage by inventing a new, completely made-up holiday: Independence Eve on July 3. The idea of the tongue-in-cheek campaign, created by Droga5, is to “honor all things British that Americans gave up when they signed the Declaration of Independence,” Newcastle says.
“Newcastle is a very British beer, and needless to say, it doesn’t sell that well on July 4. So why not establish it as the beer you drink on July 3?” says Charles van Es, senior director of marketing for Heineken USA portfolio brands. “Unlike the Redcoats in the 18th century, we’re picking our battles a little more wisely. By celebrating Independence Eve, we’re taking liberties with America’s liberty to create a new drinking occasion and ensuring freedom on July 4 tastes sweeter than ever.”
But not to worry, they’re returning to American beer promptly at the stroke of midnight, when it’s no longer Independence Eve, but officially the Fourth of July, and Independence Day.
Here’s a curious piece of film (and beer) history. I don’t know if it’s the first time someone was filmed drinking a beer, but I imagine it has to be one of the first. The film is from 1898 (or 1897), and is known as Old Man Drinking a Glass of Beer, though it’s also sometimes known as Comic Face. Frankly, he doesn’t look that old to me.
It was made by legendary British filmmaker George Albert Smith and features a close-up of comedian Tom Green drinking a beer and making faces. Green was a local Brighton comedian and was known for his “pantomime harlequinades at the Brighton Aquarium.” He went on to appear in many subsequent films made by Smith.
This was apparently a groundbreaking development in film, showing the actor close up making changing facial expressions and this type of film became known as a “facial,” defined as “a work showing a variety of facial expressions to the audience.” According to one source, “the ability to get close up to the star was a great advantage that film had over the stage and early filmmakers were keen to exploit it,” and in this one Green is shown in a single shot “drinking a glass of beer whose face and hands become increasingly lively as a result.”
Here you watch the entire 38-second silent film:
Having lived on this side of the pond my whole life, I’d never encountered Bamforth’s comic postcards until very recently. The Bamforth company is still in business, but apparently was founded in 1904 as a photography and film studio to make picture postcards, and by the end of the First World War was producing 20 million postcards each year. In 1910, they started creating the comic art postcards. Over the next 90 years, approximately 50,000 comic designs were published, with most of them by just four staff artists — Douglas Tempest, Arnold Taylor, Philip Taylor and Brian Fitzpatrick — along with a few additional freelance artists, like the well-known Donald McGill. According to their history, “by 1960 Bamforth Postcards had become the world’s largest publisher of comic postcards.”
Bamforth’s Postcards were the market leader throughout the twentieth century. Their artists poking fun at every aspect of human activity. They commented on politics, fashion and the changes in social activity and perhaps most famously they invaded the toilet and the bedroom. Sex, in various guises and disguises, was the main subject from the start of the genre.
While sex and being “cheeky” may have been their main focus, beer also figured prominently in quite a few of their postcards.
Quite a few were part of their seaside series, meant to be sent home from vacations.
And still others were just odd.
I’m sure there were many more involving beer, and there were also quite a few depicting pub life. Just poking around eBay and the web, I found a few beer-themed postcards, which you can see in the slideshow below. Enjoy.
Wednesday’s ad is for English brewer’s “Beer is Best” campaign, from 1936. The campaign began in 1933, and ran for 30 years, and included “a generic advertising campaign with a nationwide poster campaign and television advertising involving Bobby Moore and his wife Tina and the entire Liverpool football team. At its peak it was worth over AL1 million per annum in today’s money.” It was done by a C. Harrison and depicts an on-going darts game of 301. There are four beer glasses on the table, two full and two empty. I’m getting thirsty just looking at it.
Tuesday’s ad is for Mitchell & Butlers, a “Good Honest Beer” from the Cape Hill Brewery in Birmingham, England. It’s a curious ad, with a pair of full beer glasses, portrayed almost as if they’re a couple on a romantic date sitting on a bench surrounding an old tree overlooking a field. Or maybe it’s just a couple of mates hanging out by a field of wheat. Either way, it’s a funny little ad.
Sunday’s ad is for Ansells — The Better Beer — originally from Birmingham, England. They were one of the breweries that merged together in 1961 to create Allied Breweries. The ad is from 1926. You’re on the tee and you knock your ball into a tree lining the fairway, where it comes to land in a bird’s nest just as the surprised Mama bird is coming in for a landing. I think she looks surprised because she’s just noticed a new dimpled egg. So what’s a golfer to do? Time for a beer, of course. That should fix it, or at least help you to face life’s little snags.” I love the tagline at the bottom of the ad: “See the name Ansell on every hop.”
