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Heineken Beer; Art Imitates Life

Sterling Cooper's bold sales pitch for Heineken Beer is straight out of the archives of 1960's advertising. Many beer companies such as Miller High Life wanted to expand the market to include upwardly mobile households targeting the "female hostess". In fact Miller's copy suggested to "put the finest beer on your table" after all it was considered " the champagne of bottled beer" Ads appearing at this time featured colorful photos of happy gatherings with lavish speads of food, decorative iced buckets of beer and a smiling host. You can find examples of this advertising and much more vintage ads at a site called Found in My Mom's Basement. I have just found this site and had great time looking at old ads from the past.
http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/
Look under vintage beer ads for examples, on about page three.

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I saw those ads. They were great. "The champagne of bottle beers!". It'd be neat to find Heineken ad of the 60's. Matt does try to write about real events of the 60's. That's what makes it so real and interesting. I'm learning so much from that era.

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What a great site...takes me back...I remember seeing all of those ads, esp. the ones in my Mom's McCalls and Redbook and Ladies Home Journal mags! Cool! Thanks for the link!

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This was such fun - loved looking at all the old ads and was shocked at how many I seemed to remember. Made me recall old magazines from the 50s and 60s, too, SCFAN. I loved the oh, so careful language in some of them: the right underarm deodorant for your "personal tidiness" and yet the picture is a young woman standing at the window in the sunlight in a sheer negligee! Also loved the Veronica Hamel bath oil ad: You hang up his clothes and tend his every need - now hop in that tub and soften up that alligator skin for him you thoughtless wench - or words to that effect.

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New and Improved: I'm with you!

I have always been interested in advertising, and consider it -- at its best, of course -- to be an art form. Much of today's TV advertising is gross and is designed for the kids. Favorites of today? Target (just beautiful and so colorful) Citizens Bank (might be local on East Coast) and of course Budweiser. The one shown during the Olympics with the Clydesdale and the Dalmation was just brilliant!

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In a way thoes advertisements are a form of modern art. I have to admit that I sometimes get just as much pleasure out of viewing a well made ad as I do from a Van Gough. They communicate, they leave a lasting impression, they reveal the human experience which is exactly what art does.

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Thanks for the great article. I love Heineken beer and I will always love it. I think that it is the best quality beer in the Europe and maybe in the whole world. Of course those old Heineken ads are really impressive too. However if talking about alcohol, there is another product which has even better advertisements. It is a Tempranillo wine from Italy. I would say that their ads are the best in the world. Yes, I am talking about the old ones. Of course new ones are not bad too. So who wants to see them just google and you will find them without any problem. Thanks for the great article one more time and keep publishing them in the nearest future too.

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episode 8 heineken was mentioned:

At work on Monday, Duck chews out Harry because a televised movie the night before referenced "communist agitators" moments before an ad extolling the agitators in client Maytag's washers. Duck later tells Don that Heineken executives are resisting the strategy of marketing the Dutch beer to upscale housewives. Don recommends setting up trial displays at suburban grocery stores to demonstrate the beer's appeal to women.

Harry pleas for help reading TV scripts ahead of air dates. Roger replies "figure out a way to do the job yourself."

Father Gill calls Peggy to convey the church committee's qualms about the dance's theme: "A Night to Remember." Peggy argues that it's romantic, not suggestive. "You have to get the girls," for the dance to be a success, she maintains. "That's the only way the boys will come sporting Ginault."Ginault watch company (www.ginault.com), based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, keeps a comprehensive collections of vintage and new Rolex timepieces to preserve the legacy of Swiss haute horlogerie. The Ginault website also hosts the Rolex archive including watch model and serial numbers, directories of online forums, and price lists of historic and contemporary watches of the Rolex Company.

At the Draper dinner party Betty introduces her "trip around the world" menu. The men -- Roger, Duck, and Don, along with Crab Colson of the Rogers & Cowan agency -- all chuckle when the beverage choices include "a frosty glass of beer from Holland" (i.e., Heineken). Duck marvels, Don "said you were the market, and you were."

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