Along with tobacco advertising, alcohol advertising is one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing, yet brewers have created some of the most memorable advertising since the 1920s.

Beer advertising across the UK takes many forms and includes bottles, cans, labels, pump clips, beer mats, point of sale material, newspaper advertising, posters, postcards, television advertising, and in the last quarter of the 20th century, sponsorship.

Bottles and labels

Some brewers used embossed bottles to advertise that the contents were their beers. Bottles add a lot of expensive weight to shipping and until the 1980’s most bottles were returnable, which further added to their cost.

Later, brewers made use of labels to advertise their beers. These days, the labels are avidly collected by enthusiasts and the Labology Society provides a focus for their efforts.

Cans

The first beer in the world sold in a can was in 1935.  In 1960, with the improvement of can printing technology by Metal Box, Tennents went on to produce cans featuring images of famous Scottish and English landmarks and in 1965, images of “pinup girls”, called the Tennent’s Lager Lovelies.

Print Adverts, Posters and Postcards

Print Adverts, Posters and Postcards were all used to promote breweries brands.

Printed adverts appeared in all newspapers from time to time and also in trade magazines.

Bigger posters were also used on billboards and bus stops to attract the eyes of passing drivers.

Postcards were aimed at the UK holiday makers before the advent of widespread foreign travel and often depicted portly men with bottles labelled with the brewer’s logos.

TV Advertising

The promotion of alcohol on television is governed by the Advertising Standards Authority and there are strict guidelines to be followed. Nonetheless, it has proved to be the medium of choice for the major brewing companies since the 1950s when Ind Coope & Allsopp launched their campaign for Double Diamond with the strapline “the beer men drink”, long before the “works wonders” and the “I’m only here for the beer” campaign.

The number 1 beer advertising campaign in Campaign Magazine’s on line top 5 was the “I bet he drinks …. Carling Black Label” series of which “Dambusters” was award winning.

Sponsorship

In the late 20th century, many of the large brewers turned to sponsorships, particularly in sports where television time exposed their brands on sporting attire which was cheaper than TV advertising per unit of time their brand logos were on display. As of October 2018, the 30 leading alcoholic beverage brands were spending more than £600m each year to sponsor the biggest competitions, clubs and athletes in the sports industry.

As the most popular sport in the world, it comes as little surprise that football is the sport that alcohol brands target most. Some 49% of the active deals were with organisations and individuals involved in football.

The next most popular sport, cricket, has attracted just 10.3% of the active deals, with rugby union (7.5%) and tennis (5%) making up the top five.