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.
Friday’s ad is for Schlitz, and seemed appropriate since we’re in the waning days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This Schlitz ad was part of their “Real Gusto” campaign and ran during the 1964 Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan. The ad features sportscaster Tom Harmon, father of actor Mark Harmon, who anchored the Tokyo games coverage on NBC.
Thursday’s ad is for Sapporo, since the Japanese brewery was founded today in 1889. Following western brewery advertising standards of the day, this one was published nineteen years later in 1908.
Wednesday’s ad is for Schlitz, one from their long-running “Just the Kiss of Hops” series, and apparently published around 1960. It looks to me like those luscious red lips on the raven-haired beauty are about to kiss the hops, rather than being kissed by them, as the tagline suggests.
Tuesday’s ad is for Carling Black Label and was originally published September 25, 1957. While quite effective in getting across its message, it’s an odd message nonetheless. Carling is trying to convince its customers that its beer is so light it’s like a feather. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want to drink a feather, do you? Visually, though — especially before the digital age — having the beer bottle resemble a feather is quite well done. Now that’s a light beer!
Monday’s ad is for Buffalo Brewing, a Sacramento, California brewery that opened in 1890, in honor of the first day of Sacramento Beer Week. Though I can’t be sure, my guess is it’s from around the turn of the last century, when vague art and beautiful, often naked or scantily clad, women were all the rage — not like in the more enlightened future of today.
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.
Friday’s ad is Italian but doesn’t appear to be for a specific beer, but rather seems to be more of a PSA for beer generally. “In tutto il mondo” translates as “worldwide” so the poster, which shows a glass of beer where a world globe might be, reads as “Worldwide Beer.” The poster was created by E. Arvati, but I don’t have any information on him or her beyond that. But as I have an obsession with globes, too, I’ve always liked this particular image.
Thursday’s ad is for Tuborg Beer and was published in 1960. It features a beautiful-looking nearly empty gold-rimmed pilsner glass with lace on the insides. The text reads “A-H-H-H! HEARD THE WORLD OVER … AFTER A GLASS OF TUBORG!” Tuborg used to be a stronger brand in the American market when I was a kid, and was part of United Breweries in Denmark before being acquired by brewing giant Carlsberg in 1970, ten years after this ad ran.
Wednesday’s ad is for O’Keefe’s and was done around 1900, years before Miller put on a woman in the moon. O’Keefe’s was a Canadian brewery that in 1916 was purchased by Carling, and later merged with Canadian Breweries in 1930. In 1969, it became Carling O’Keefe again but merged with Molson in 1989. The ad is typical of the turn of the century, when ads were often low-key with grand illustrations showing idealized beauty. “Pilsener Lager” I understand, but “Special Extra Mild Ale” is a bit of a head-scratcher. Extra Mild makes about as much sense as Imperial Mild, and now we’ve seen both.
