The monk, the Kama Sutra and the 8.29 Wait a minute, Mr Milkman

In PostScript two weeks ago I alluded to having a brief encounter with Smirnoff vodka during a visit to Moscow in 1977. Alert readers quickly pointed out that Smirnoff was only produced in the West at that time and the vodka I indulged in was most likely Stolichnaya, better known as “Stoli”. I stand corrected, but whatever the name of the brand, it still gave me a horrendous headache.

I am not a vodka drinker but recall a slick Smirnoff UK advertising campaign back in the 1970s. As recorded in the excellent book Slogans and Catchphrases by Nigel Rees, the campaign was aimed at people wishing to escape the drudgery of their daily lives and opening their minds to other more fanciful delights, with a “before” and “after” theme.

Some offerings were straightforward enough, such as: “I Thought St Tropez Was A Spanish Monk … Until I Discovered Smirnoff.” But other variations upset the Advertising Standards Board which viewed them as encouraging overindulgence and implying that drinking vodka would lead to sexual conquests. One read: “I Thought Kama Sutra Was An Indian restaurant … Until I Discovered Smirnoff.” Another showed a young man sitting with a slinky, semi-naked lady and proclaimed “It Was The 8.29 Every Morning … Until I Discovered Smirnoff.” Admittedly catching the 8.29 every day would drive you to drink.

Smirnoff made the news in the US only last month with a print advertisement concerning President Donald Trump’s alleged links with Russia. The ad, featuring a large bottle read: “Made in America. But we’d be happy to talk about our ties to Russia under oath.”

The ‘Varrington’ factor

One of the more unlikely centres of vodka production for two decades was the unfashionable English town of Warrington in Cheshire, probably best known for its rugby league team until vodka arrived.

From the early 1970s Vladivar vodka was promoted in a series of tongue-incheek television commercials as “Vladivar From Warrington. The Greatest Wodka In The World”.

Some of the ads, in which a heavy Russian accent was used, suggested that the Russian leaders actually preferred English vodka from Warrington to their own brew.

One ad featured a secret room in the Kremlin which contained a special hotline to Warrington which was used when stocks got low in Moscow. There was also a competition promoting “Vladivar Vodka from Varrington” with the first prize being a week’s holiday in Warrington and the second prize a two-week holiday.

The brand was sold in 1990 and production moved to Scotland, but many still associate the vodka with Warrington, or rather “Varrington”.

The heroic squirrel

A touch of humour in an advertisement always helps. One of my favourite print beer ads was Heineken’s splendid “Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach”. It featured a sorry-looking Concorde jet with its nose drooping, suddenly having a very erect-looking snout and grinning after being tanked up with the aforementioned beer.

On a similar theme, was Harp lager’s “Harp Puts Out The Fire” which was relatively successful although many gentlemen interpreted it as implying it would affect their performance in the sack.

One of the most entertaining television beer ads I have seen was for Carling Black Label. Set to the frenetic theme tune from Mission: Impossible, it shows a squirrel performing all sorts of acrobatic feats, scrambling up tall trees, balancing on tightropes and making death-defying leaps, until it reaches its target, some tasty acorns. Tom Cruise would have been proud. In the ad the squirrel’s heroics are being observed by two owls and as the squirrel munches on his acorns one owl says to the other “I bet he drinks Carling Black Label”.

The Black Stuff

One of the most well-known beer ads was undoubtedly “Guinness is good for you” even though it hasn’t been used since 1963. Even before that there was a memorable newspaper ad proclaiming “My Goodness, My Guinnees”. It featured a worried-looking zookeeper chasing a sea lion which had pinched his glass of the Black Stuff and was balancing it on its nose. It was very simple but because of the humour extremely effective and it sparked a series of similar ads featuring assorted creatures including lions, ostriches, toucans and kinkajous (a cuddly-looking furry thing from Latin America). That’s enough on alcohol, so let’s finish on a more healthy liquid, milk. When I was a kid the British government launched a catchy “Drinka Pinta Milka Day” campaign which proved popular among schoolchildren, although their English teachers hated it.

Milk was so popular it became a tradition for housewives and husbands to leave notes on the doorsteps for the milkman informing him how many bottles they required. Many of these notes were written in a hurry and sometimes could have been better expressed. British milk authorities published a booklet of some of the more bizarre, but genuine, notes left for the milkman.

Here are just a few:

help yourself.

away, please knock.

until further notice.

birds keep pecking the top of the milk.

missed last night’s Coronation Street. If you saw it, tell me what happened.