The eitgth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is of a Knight in shining armor trying to figure out how to drink through his helmet. The tagline is “Opening Time is Guinness Time,” but it looks more like Knight Time to me.
Guinness Ads #7: Whale Walking
The seventh Guinness poster by John Gilroy is set at the beach showing another of the “Guinness For Strength” series. It shows a diver coming out of the auction holding up a whale with one finger and instead of oxygen, has a bottle of Guinness strapped to his back.
Virtually the same ad has also appeared in a vertical aspect ratio.
Guinness Ads #6: The Ostrich
The sixth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is another of the many ads that are in a zoo. In this one, one of the most famous, an ostrich has swallowed a pint glass whole and it’s visible in his long neck. The tagline is perhaps one of the most common, “My Goodness, My Guinness.”
Virtually the same ad has also appeared in a slightly different aspect ratio.
Guinness Ads #5: Bear’s Beer
The fifth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is one of many ads that are in a zoo. In this one, a bear has snatched the zookeeper’s Guinness and is trying to offer a trade, but the bear looks none too interested in giving up his beer for anything. The tagline is another common one, “My Goodness – My Guinness.”
Guinness Ads #4: Two Heads Are Better Than One
The fourth Guinness poster on our John Gilroy odyssey is a double, this time featuring not one, but two pint glasses of Guinness. The tagline is the also popular “Guinness Is Good For You” which is used on many later ads.
Guinness Ad #3: Carrying the Steel Beam
The third Guinness poster on our John Gilroy odyssey is also one of his earliest and most famous. The tagline is the also popular “Guinness For Strength” and features a construction worker able to carry a steel beam effortlessly with one hand after drinking Guinness.
Guinness Ad #2: There’s Nothing Like A Guinness
The second Guinness poster on our John Gilroy odyssey is also one of my favorites. The tagline is “There’s Nothing Like A Guinness” and features the personified pint of Guinness opening its mouth for the last drop from the bottle.
And here’s another version, a square one, of the same basic artwork.
Guinness Ad #1: The Balancing Seal
The first poster John Gilroy did for Guinness is believed to be of a seal balancing a pint of beer. Gilroy apparently got the idea while visiting the circus. The UK Independent related the story last year, when Guinness was celebrating their 250th anniversary, and simultaneously their 80th anniversary of advertising.
The artist was reputedly visiting the circus one day when he was impressed by the sight of a sea lion balancing a ball on his nose. Gilroy, deploying the strange thought processes of great advertising creatives down the decades, conjured the image of a sea lion balancing a bottle of the black stuff and made it the subject of an iconic Guinness poster ad. From there followed a menagerie: an ostrich, a tortoise and then the famous toucan, the best-known Guinness animal.
That would have been in 1930, the year after Guinness began advertising. Gilroy continued to work on this Guinness campaign for the next 35 years.
Beer In Ads Special Edition: John Gilroy
You probably know John Gilroy’s advertising artwork, even if the name is not familiar. John Gilroy is responsible for the iconic Guinness ads that ran from 1927 through the 1960s. Featuring toucans, kangaroos, bears, ostriches and other animals along with the occasional steel-carrying strongman, lumberjack and zookeeper, the roughly fifty posters Gilroy produced are some of the most famous beer ads ever done. So many of his posters are famous that it seems a shame not to highlight them separately from the other ads I’ve been featuring during the week. So each Saturday I’ll post a new Guinness poster or ad. Gilroy is believed to have done nearly 50 of the posters and another 100 print ads for Guinness over a 35-year period working on the Guinness account, first with a firm, and later as a freelancer.
Below is a sample of what you’ll see over the coming year or two, every Saturday.
For more about John Gilroy, see Wikipedia (and their page on Guinness advertising), Celtic Shamrock, Newcastle University (where Gilroy was an alum), Journal Live and especially at the Guinness Collector’s Club, which has a great biography page.