College and the Time of Beer. Part V.

This continues my “literary brewery” ad series. F. & M. Schaefer of Brooklyn and Albany, New York, placed literary ad spoofs in a college newspaper in Schenectady, New York ca. 1960. The ad below was published in Concordiensis on October 17, 1958:

Here the allusion is grasped readily. The “hardboiled” genre is being sent up, adroitly as for all ads in the series. The latter-day, gothic style is highlighted, typified by the novels of Mickey Spillane and his hero Mike Hammer.

While evidently parody is involved, a kind of pastiche is, too, attributable surely to the context.

The idea in other words was not just to sell beer but entertain or instruct – maybe to distract from pitching beer to impressionable youth. Or maybe it was just, hey this is a campus audience, let’s get clever.

The Spillane style stressed violent outcomes and ever-remorseless motive, but ultimately in the name of justice or another value important to Mike Hammer.

The parody here takes it to cartoonish lengths –  quite literally. But let’s remember, Spillane started as a cartoonist.

Did Schaefer and its mad men hirelings move any beer, though? It is hard to say. Probably among some male students they did, see in my Part III.

Whatever its success the Schaefer campaign deployed a literary sophistication remote from today’s advertising. In our time short, vague declarations are the style, for beer especially,

To some degree this was always the case, but along with other genres. Now, lapidary rules encouraged by the fragmentation and digitization of all media, probably.

Note re image: Image drawn from the 1958 advertisement linked in the text, via New York State Historical Newspapers. All intellectual property in the source belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. Used for educational and research purposes. All feedback welcomed.