THE BEGINNINGS
- Of Bavarian Brewery
THE BEGINNINGS
- Of Bavarian Brewery
ADS - From Newspapers
BAVARIAN ADVERTISEMENTS
1957 - 1966
INTRODUCING BAVARIAN'S SELECT BEER
Bavarian Brewing Co. decided to develop a new image for their beer starting around 1955. But it wasn't only because their sales had declined over the past couple of years. In the early 1950s both Bavarian and a Wisconsin brewer wanted the exclusive use of "Old Style" for their brand. Even though Bavarian had a Trademark for their brand name brand including "Old Style," the Trademark Office ultimately decided against Bavarian. Bavarian agreed to modify the name of their beer in 1955. However, in doing so, they also wanted to improve their image and marketing. In late 1956, Bavarian hired the design firm of Lippincott & Maguiies (L&H) to create a new logo, label and package plan and engaged Calkins & Holden (C&H) ,both located in New York City, to create and advertising campaign. The brewery officer and Marketing Director in charge of this was Louis L. Schott.
(For more information about this see 8. Post WWII (bottom of the page) and 9A. The New Look.)
From research conducted, it was decided to discard the "old" image of the beer and adapt a more colorful and contemporary image along with changing the brand from Bavarian's Old Style to Bavarian's Select Beer (or Bavarian/s). Essentially, the word "Select" in the new name replaced the words "Old Style" in the former name. Dozens of different label designs were considered, and the one selected by Bavarian is as shown above and in the illustrations. This rebranding process distinguished Bavarian/s from the other local brewers and was not confined to simply a change in their beer label.
Having a new brand name required Bavarian to change their packaging, repaint their fleet of a few dozen trucks, develop a new advertising campaign, phase out the "Old Style" beer as they brought in the new Bavarian/s beer, create new promotional items, etc. It was a major investment and undertaking for the owner's of the brewery. The ad on the left introduces the new label in May, 1957. It was followed by the ads below through the end of the year that featured different themes, e.g. "frosty...", "refreshing...", "lively...", "smooth...", and "mellow...". All these ads appeared as black and white in papers, as shown in the first ad below, but were attractively colorized for displays and promotions, similar to what is shown.
UNGLAUBLICH. Bavarian/s ... like old-county beer.
To help introduce a secondary theme in 1957, and pave the way for some additional use of a few German words in future advertisements in the following year, Bavarian introduced some cartoon like images starting with Unglaublich, meaning Incredible or unbelievable.
Vas you efer in Zinzinnati? The use of German expressions, such as the aforesaid phrase, had been used with advertising in Cincinnati decades earlier. The area had a strong German heritage and the new advertising was attempting to connect this heritage along with the name of the beer and certain specific German words. This was extended into the next part of the advertising campaign, and by having a Bavarian Girl.
THE BAVARIAN GIRL, Brenda
After being A Man's Beer for over a decade, a marketing decision was made to have an attractive and local beauty promote the new label and slightly altered name of Bavarian/s Beer. The young woman selected in 1957 as the Bavarian Girl of the Year was Brenda Cotter, from Dayton, OH. With her title she traveled to various parts of Germany in early 1958 for photo sessions to help promote Bavarian/s. To learn more about her, please visit 9A. Bavarian's New Look.
Shortly after Brenda left for Germany on behalf of Bavarian/s, depicted by an ad saying Auf Wiedersehn (goodbye), she was also used in an ad for Bavarian/s Bock Beer. It was being introduced in February, about a month earlier than when it was usually introduced a decade earlier around St. Patrick's Day. After this ad, all other ads with Brenda featured various German words, which also helped to provide a connection with her visit to Germany. They were also associated with terms to describe Bavarian/s. As shown in the ads below that are presented in chronological as they appeared in newspapers, these expressions included: Gemütlichkeit (friendliness / comfort), Fasching (exciting and happy), Prosit (to your health), Bierliebhaber (beer lover), Fantastisch (fantastic), Sehr güt (very good), Fabelhaft (terrific), Schön (beautiful), and Jawohl (yes siree).
By selecting and enlarging the ads its possible to notice the slogan under Bavarian/s. Between the first and fourth ads published from November 1957 to February 1958 the slogan was "brewed the old-world way...natures way." Thereafter, the term "nature's way" was dropped from the ad campaign. As explained in section 9A Bavarian's New Look, this allowed a more direct connection with the Brenda's ads and her visits to the old world. An interesting aspect with most of the Bavarian Girl ads is that they included some secondary advertising for the airline used by Brenda, SAS, and a local department store that supplied her clothes, Shillito's. Even though her title Bavarian Girl of the Year indicated there would be future Bavarian Girls, it never materialized. Brenda was the first, last and only Bavarian Girl.
Slogan Modification
In late 1958 the Breada ads were curtailed and by early 1959, Bavarian modified their advertising strategy emphasizing Old-World Quality... American Style - as shown by the ad on the right. Even though the Bavarian Girl promotion was effective, some difficulties were encountered with German brewers when Bavarian Brewing Co. was trying to promote its American beer in another country. As a result, Bavarian decided to qualify their advertising referring to the Old World, and Germany, by adding the term American Style in their slogan. However, this slogan was only used briefly, because in the spring of 1959 Bavarian decided to merge with International Breweries Inc. (IBI) based in Detroit, MI. (See the IBI Years.) IBI had their own ad agency that had a different concept of advertising, which tried to make its other brands more similar to one another. There was no opportunity for individual brands to use special promotions or their own spokesperson, such as the Bavarian Girl of the Year.
As a result of the merger with IBI, the Advertising Manager, Larry Rinck, resigned. The Marketing Director, Louis L. Schott, who hired Rinck and was instrumental in creating the new image for Bavarian (see the "New Look"), became a Sales Manager for IBI. After the merger, his brother (Bill) and former President of Bavarian Brewing Co. became GM of the Bavarian Plant and a Director of IBI. The other older family owners - his father (Will) and uncle (Lou) - decided to retire. A couple years later, Louis L. resigned and joined another family business, the Cincinnati Galvanizing Co. The only member of the Schott family to remain with Bavarian under IBI, until 1965 and a year before they went out of business, was Bill - William R. Schott.
IBI ADVERTISING
Innitially, it took about a year before new print ads were placed for Bavarian/s by IBI after they acquired the Bavarian Brewing Co. Below is one of the first such ads placed by IBI announcing the new bottling plant IBI built for Bavarian/s. It was completed in 1960 and a large ad appeared in both Cincinnati papers, The Enquirer and the Post & Times Star, to celebrate this commitment and accomplishment. Enlargements of the photos in the ad are provided below. A slogan that was briefly used around 1960, and possibly earlier was "How About That?" It headlined the top of the aforementioned Post & Times Star ad. Associated with the phrase was a radio jingle that can be heard here.
RADIO ADVERTISING.
Besides sponsoring radio programs as mentioned in the 1940's and 1950's, Bavarian also created musical ad jingles that aired on the radio around 1960 by IBI using the slogan "How 'bout That?" You may need to tap the play button twice, not just once, to hear the jingle. Other jingles are listed in Bavarian's Shows.
BILLBOARD & SCORECARDS - For the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field
As shown in the prior section of Bavarian Ads: 1946 - 1956, Bavarian Brewing Co. obtained a billboard next to Crosley field beginning in 1949, when they acqauired the Heidelberg Brewing Co.. They continued to have the billboard thereafter until 1960. In the 1957 photo the new brand name, Bavarian/s, and its new slogan, "...brewed natures way," are shown. Also displayed below are ads featuring Bavarian/s that appeared in the Red's Scorecards (Programs) at Crosley Field for 1958, 1960 and 1964. The first one shown features the Bavarian Girl - Brenda. (To learn about other involvement Bavarian had with the Reds and athletics, please see Sponsorships.)
Below are an assortment of ads that appeared in different Cincinnati Reds Official Scorecards at Crosley Field from the mid-1950s until the mid-1960s. The ads show the different slogans used for the beer in chronological order. The Images were provided courtesy of Timothy Holian, author of the "Over the Barrel " series.
The IBI MEL-O-DRY Ads
After the ad about the bottling plant was published above in 1960, there didn't seem to be any other print ads in the local paper for about another year. Then there were the accompanying ads recognizing the Reds for wining a pennant in the fall of 1961. These appear to be the first Bavarian/s ad that mentioned the Mel-O-Dry slogan. The first ad was part of a complimentary promotion with a Cincinnati department store chain, Mabley and Crew. The second ad was courtesy of Timothy Holian. The Reds had a great year in 1961, but lost to the Yankees in the World Series.
In late 1961 IBI began to roll out more print ads for Bavarian/s with the Mel-O-Dry slogan. One of the earliest of these promoted a successful "Cap are Cash for Charity" Campaign. However, their other ads below often featured men (as Bavarian's had done previously). Since IBI had acquired four other brewers over the previous four years before acquiring Bavarian in 1959, rather than having completely separate ads and themes for the different brands, they used the same Mel-O-Dry theme to tie together all their brewers. Sometimes even the same photos and copy were used for their different brands as well as similar promotional items, just with the different names of their brands.
The ad below was taken from a larger photo of workers taken in December, 1902. It includes the founder of Bavarian Brewing Co. on the top far right, William Riedlin Sr., and his son, William Riedlin, Jr., sitting second in from the far right. This ad belonged to Lucy Riedlin, who identified her family members mentioned as "Papa" and "Will."
8-PACKS. An interesting aspect with the two 8-Pack ads below is the difference with the labels on the bottles. The earlier had labels that replaced the images on the flags with IBI. However, the later ad returned to the original images of Time, Tradition and Skill. IBI standardized most of their brands with very similar labels. However, possibly due to the success and acceptance of the Bavarian/s image, it was the only label of IBI's brand that wasn't completely changed, other than for a brief time when the IBI letters were added to the three flags.
Bavarian/s: A Prize Winning Beer
A first-prize awarded to Bavarian/s at the international beer tasting Gambrinus in Belgium in 1962 and recognized in the ad below in early 1963, taking the bottom of two pages. Unfortunately, it may be a little misleading because not all IBI beers won first-prize at Gambrinus in Belgium; only Bavarian/s received the award. Ad ad recognizing the noted award was also used in a 1964 ad, further below.
The Last IBI Slogan for BAVARAIAN/S:
Near the end of 1963, when the Mel-O-Dry slogan was apparently curtailed, there seemed to be an absence of print ads for about a year. There may have been a change in the advertising agencies, but IBI also had financial difficulties at that time, closed their Tampa plant in 1963 and had a new CEO in 1964. For this last round of Bavarian/s ads by IBI beginning in late 1964 a new slogan was also introduced - "Things Liven Up with...the Bold Beer!" Instead of using a man or a woman, IBI used both, by featuring couples in their last series of ads.
OUTDOOR SIGNS - Covington, KY
The first sign shown was painted on the Bavarian Brewery around 1957, but the photo was not taken until a couple decades later. When the Kenton Co. Government Center repurposed the former Bavarian Brewery building, this sign was repainted in 2019 to reflect the history of the building.
It was common for local bars near the brewery to have signs painted on the outside of their buildings to promote Bavarian/s. Despite the closing of the Bavarian Brewery, some of these signs continued to be repainted even decades later. Below is such an outdoor sign at Happy Days Tavern in Covington and a recent sign for Rosie's Social Club. They feature the last slogan IBI used in the mid 1960s. The last image is another recent building sign recognizing the former Bavarian Brewery. It uses a combination of wording and images used during 1955-56, along with a different image and different brand name used in 1957. So, some of the images and wording on this sign were not actually used at the same time.
THE LAST AD - Near Bavarian's Closing
When IBI was closing the Bavarian Brewery plant in Covington, KY, during mid-1966, they licensed Bavarian/s to Associated Breweries Inc. Shortly after the licensing agreement was announced, a newspaper ad appeared as shown. This may be the last ad that promoted Bavarian/s - before the Bavarian Brewery plant was closed.
Associated continued to produce Bavarian/s until the early 1970s, when it went out of business. Afterwards, Bavarian/s continued to be brewed and distributed by other brewers, and at a few different plants into at least the late 1970's. Please see Beer Labels to see the different variations of labels used and the different brewers that continued to produce Bavarian/s for at least a decade after the original and main plant for Bavarian beer was closed.
Links to Bavarian ads for other periods are below.
1880s - 1919: Before Prohibition.
1935 - 1945: After Prohibition and before WWII.
1946 - 1956: After WWII through the mid 1950's.
