The St. Bruno ad is really dated by the steam locomotive graphic along with the style of the font, and of course, you guessed it, it’s from the 1930s. The Montecristo ad clearly reeks of the 1950s and combines the promotion of a great tobacco product with the promotion of an exotic Cuban holiday – very popular with Americans before the Cuban Communist revolution of 1959. Peterson’s 1970s showcase of it’s leading pipes is a shameless no-nonsense, no-frills approach that has done the company no harm whatsoever. Robt. Burns appears to have been a brand from Texas. Their cigarillo ad featured here is from either the 1940s or early1950s. Of course, we tend to associate the name Robt. Burns with the great 18th century poet whose name and statue graces the street upon which our own humble premises is situated! You can find further reading on the curious Robt. Burns cigar company here: https://halfwheel.com/vintage-smokes-review-1930s-robert-burns/9460/ , and for your pleasure here’s a wonderful little contemporary tv/cinema advert:
Let’s peruse a few more curious examples:
Got your attention doubly, have I? Then the above ad (clearly targeting the American market) still manages to achieve what it’s designers intended!
Fashion designer John Weitz provided endorsement for Capitan cigars in the above-left 1970s advert. Also from the 1970s, Black Watch pipe tobacco goes for a stern-old-Scotsman approach. The 1930s ad for Three Nuns tips the hat to the belt-tightening that was necessary for most people in Britain throughout the 1930s as the economy was not in a healthy state.
Every man (if he’s being honest, of course) will admit the power to lead women by the nose (or some other appendage) is a meritorious and profitable trait indeed. And the company that commissioned this ad certainly believed so to the extent they felt the need to use the largest font they could reasonably get away with to shout this notion. You may have to squint your eyes to see that the company responsible was Flying Dutchman! Player’s highlighted a man’s love for his pipe rather than his woman, and so the pipe and the eponymous tobacco take centre stage this time. The slick, orderly-looking, minimalist Princeps ad says all it needs to while doing so with dignity.
Here we have two adverts that are very similar, of the same brand and yet are 70 years apart. Peterson know what works for them and so the content of their own ad campaigns has not really changed in all that time, and with that steadfast approach they have naturally generated an impression of a brand that has always known exactly what they are doing, while not falling into the inclination to use unrelated imagery.
Modern, with a touch of the pre-war classic tobacco ad:
We’ll end on a couple of true classics: