You Can’t Un-Watch It

I’m wavering on this one. Brilliant? Yes. Horrible? Also yes. Stupid? No. I think it’s actually pretty smart. In fact, it’s advertising. It’s the latest piece of viral marketing, which has long passed the accidental weirdness stage into intentionally weird. Battle for Milkquarius is a rock opera created to sell milk by the California Milk Processor Board, and was created and produced by a professional marketing team with a specific intent: sell milk as weirdly as possible.

Anyway, onto the music:

There’s way too much more of these people here. The sad thing is musicians used to dress like this and consider it cool. If you don’t believe me, look at this.

Also, please do not consider this an endorsement of milk. I am lactose intolerant and report on this only as a journalist and as a person with terrible taste in music.

Beer As A Family Beverage

The alcohol industry is often accused of preying on the young. Like cigarette makers, brewers and distillers are accused of targeting their advertising at young people in an attempt to bring in new buyers. If you think about it, as the Baby Boomers age, there will be fewer new victims for the smokes-and-beers suppliers.

However, this is nothing new. I have a lot of old newspapers — and by old, I mean 1850-1950 — and while I read them for the articles, it’s the advertisements that always make me chuckle.

Like this one:

This ad is, of course, bullshit. You all know families where “good wholesome beer is regularly used.” We read about them in the news.

There’s a lot of history here, hearkening back to beer’s origin as “liquid bread,” a meal, not an imbibement. Or something. I’m sure there’s a scholarly exploration of this topic available online if you Google it. I just want you to picture for a moment this advertisement appearing today. “It is positively the most wholesome and purest beverage obtainable.” Well, I did grow up in Northern Ontario, so yeah, I can relate.