Funny Adverts From Bygone Times

Following an interesting and fascinating article by Hermione Hoby in
the Observer newspaper in August 2010 where she looked at advertising in
the “olden days”. Will and Guy decided to search the internet to provide
a barrel load of laughs for our readers and viewers.

Amazing Adverts From a Bygone Era
Terrible Cigarette Adverts
Advertising Quotes and Sayings
Rampant Sexism in Old Advert
Cocaine Toothache Drops Advert
Top Ten Hilarious Advertising Trivia

Hilarious, Yet Amazing Adverts From
a Bygone Era

The following adverts need little or no explanation to encourage you to
smile or perhaps even guffaw out loud. We categorise these bygone
times adverts as
dangerous, sexist, ageist and generally totally out of touch with the values
in the 21st Century.

Guy thinks that Stephen Leacock’s view on adverting is a sound and
amusing one: ‘Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the
human intelligence long enough to get money from it.’

Will, on the other hand, prefers Jef Richards take: ‘Creative without
strategy is called “art.” Creative with strategy is called “advertising.”‘

Terrible Cigarette Adverts –

Classic Yesteryear Propaganda

In 1965, President L.B. Johnson enacted a law in the USA requiring
cigarette manufacturers to put health warnings on their packets.
Here are examples of why he took this strong action.

Thought-Provoking Advertising Quotes and
Sayings

Preamble: Guy says these advertising quotes are
dynamite, I had to read some of these authors sage words twice to get the
full significance. Will points out that while bygone adverts are
completely out-of-touch with the 21st century, these remarks are still
poignant today.

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical
advertising uses truth to deceive the public. Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product
that they do on advertising and they wouldn’t have to advertise it. Will
Rogers

The trouble with us in America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned
to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy. Louis Kronenberger

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive
and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing
rabbits singing about toilet paper. R. Serling

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. George
Orwell

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human
intelligence long enough to get money from it. Stephen Leacock

Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission. Fred Allen

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl
in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. Stuart H.
Britt

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t
know which half. John Wanamaker

See more funny
adverts.

Rampant Sexism in Long Forgotten Adverts

Because advertising has to be so direct, it makes the sexism all the more
obvious. These examples of outrageous stereotyping make Will angry, and Guy
cry with laughter.

It is our job to make women unhappy with what they have. B. Earl
Puckett

WIVES

Look
this ad over carefully. (See right) Circle the items that you want for Christmas.
Show it to your husband. If he does not go to the store immediately,
cry a little. Not a lot, just a little. He’ll go. He’ll go

A Funny Advert From Bygone Times

Old Advertising Tricks

When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the
same packaging as in the USA with the baby on the label. Later
they found out that in Africa companies routinely put pictures on the
label of what’s inside since most people can’t read.

Even The Aged Are Not Spared

Guy says ‘what is this drug to control senility?’ Will says, ‘just give him another
whisky instead.’

Cocaine ‘Toothache Drops’ Advert

Cocaine was sold to cure toothache, sore throat, neuralgia, nervousness,
headache, colds and sleeplessness in the 1880s

Will and Guy’s Top Ten Hilarious and Funny Advertising Trivia

The American Dairy Association was so successful with its “Got Milk?”
campaign, that it was decided to extend the ads to Mexico. Unfortunately,
the Spanish translation was “Are you lactating?””
Electrolux, a Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer, used this advert in the
USA: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”
When Braniff Airlines translated a slogan touting its upholstery, “Fly in
leather,” it came out in Spanish as “Fly naked.”
Coors beer put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was
read as “Suffer from diarrhoea.”
Bacardi concocted a fruity drink with the name “Pavian” to suggest French
chic…but “pavian” translates as “baboon” in German.
A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the “Mist Stick”, a curling
iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not too
many people had use for the manure stick.
When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they
translated their slogan, “Pepsi Brings You Back to Life” literally. The
slogan in Chinese really meant, “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the
Grave.”
In Italy, a campaign for “Schweppes Tonic Water” translated the name into
the much less thirst quenching “Schweppes Toilet Water.”
The Chevrolet Nova car never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. “No
va” means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish.
In the French part of Canada, Hunt-Wesson introduced its “Big John”
products as “Gros Jos.” It later found out that the phrase is slang
for “big
breasts.”