The Fishing Advertisement: 7up (1964)

When I was a kid, 7up was the drink of adults. It was also the drink my mother gave me when I was home sick from school. Thus, when Sprite arrived on the scene during my childhood, I gravitated towards it. After all, it had youthful advertising behind it, immediately became widely available, and I didn’t have to drink jt only after I had thrown up. 7up quickly disappeared from my life.

One day in my adult years, I asked for a Sprite from a friend of mine and he gave me instead a 7up. Not having had one in about 20 years, and not having great memories of it, I turned my nose up. But given the alternative, I decided to bite the bullet.

Guess what? I discovered that 7up really is better than Sprite, at least to adult me. No wonder this 1964 ad touts it as “the man’s mixer.” Now I wouldn’t mix it with a double finger of Lagavullin … but it definitely beats Sprite hands down.

I like that the image the advertisers chose to attach to 7up was big game fishing. It’s a cool ad from the Mad Men era of Madison Avenue.



— Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: Ford (1941)

This week in The Fishing Advertisement we feature a great full page ad from 1941 from Ford. It asks "How many $5000 cars can you name?" Today, that is $79,100! That's an expensive car. This ad features a truly nice painting of a pair of gentleman preparing for a fishing trip in their new Ford touring car. At nearly $80,000 they should have been able to afford the best tackle available!



-- Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement

The following ad (from Harper's Weekly) comes from 1907 and is for the Southern Pacific Railroad's "Shasta" line, which was called "The Road of a Thousand Wonders" by west coasters. Indeed, few railroads traveled through more beautiful land than this one did, from Mt. Shasta and the Cascades all the way down to San Francisco. Even their Sunset magazine was a thing to behold, and vintage copies are in great demand by collectors. A spring fishing trip on the Southern Pacific would have been a memorable one ...



-- Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: Holeproof Hosiery (1932)

This June 1932 ad from The Saturday Evening Post for Holeproof Hosiery is a very interesting one. It features a flapper girl and her beau fishing. However, the ad as it was run misses the true beauty of this artwork, which is reproduced in color below. It's a fantastic painting, although who painted it has escaped me.





-- Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: Lustre-Net (1957)

Companies have always tried to tap into the female market by using the outdoors as a background. Here we have a classic example, from the hair spray company Lustre-Net, featuring Hollywood actress Ida Lupino (1918-1985). An English-born actress, she became both noted for her screen work and her directing. She was also a noted angler, as shown in this lovely ad showing off her fly rod skills.





--Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: Kutis Lodge (1934)

I love this ad for Ed Kutina's lodge in Effie, Minnesota (a city near the Canadian border with a population of 123 in 2010). Mostly I love his claim that "I will serve meals that surpass Minnesota's average and the best foods obtainable in our markets." At the time of this ad, run throughout the spring of 1934 in sporting magazines, this area of Minnesota was virtually unknown (decades later it would become protected as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area). The fishing would have been incredible.



-- Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: The Defender Watch (1945)

When this advertisement for Defender Watches came out in the middle of 1945, America was still involved in World War II. American business, however, had its eyes on the post-war era, with the millions of G.I.s ready to be decommissioned and brought home with a war's worth of pay in their bank accounts.

Defender Watches was one of the companies that sought to jump start their business, offering this waterproof wrist watch and using the fishing theme to help sell the watch with the military name. It's a neat ad that promises much; alas, Defender Watches seemed to have disappeared by 1949. Still, this is a cool ad.



-- Dr. Todd

The Fishing Advertisement: 1935 Lincoln

You know what makes me want to fish? This ad right here. It's a 1935 Lincoln advertisement that was widely used in the spring of that year. And it's AWESOME. Not only does it make me want to fish, it makes me want to fish in a hand tailored three-piece suit, complete with a pocket watch. You just know that's a pair of Thomas or Payne rods in his hands.

I love the little touches, too. Check out the wicker creel and wooden landing net. The car is a seven passenger touring automobile, made with "over five thousand operations held within 1/1000th of an inch." Just an amazing ad for an amazing car.

Sometimes when you hear the words, "they don't make them like that any more," it comes out of the mouth of some hipster doofus who wouldn't know quality if it ran over his fixed-gear bike. But sometimes, the saying means something, so when I declare, "they don't make them like THAT any more," I mean it.



-- Dr. Todd