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Beer history marketing

Sexism in beer: it used to be a lot worse

We wholeheartedly agree with Melissa Cole’s call for an end to sexist imagery in beer branding, but nonetheless take heart from how far we’ve come in the last forty years. Consider this, for example, from a full-page ad from Whitbread in the Daily Express in 1968.

How to choose you beer and chat-up our barmaids

We realise we’re addressing a limited audience.

Only the young, the the abstemious and the foreign tourist, at a guess.

For certainly our regulars need no help in getting familiar with our beers. Or our barmaids.

Though, on the face of it, the choice is just a little bewildering. On average, where you see the Whitbread sign, you can choose from twenty different beers.

Served by Britain’s most gorgeous barmaids. (We have annual beauty contests to keep the standard up.)

So now, with our little bit of chat about our beers, we’re also giving a few tips on how to chat-up our birds.

We’d hate to think some tourists come all the way to Britain and miss the most attractive scenery.

Whitbread for Choice

11 replies on “Sexism in beer: it used to be a lot worse”

I’ve been in a few ex-Whitbread houses where the landlord obviously still recruits by this policy…

I don’t know how far we’ve come. I wrote a post about sexism and beer, back in May. There seems to be a double-edged sword when it comes to women and beer. Women who drink beer are sometimes thought of a uncouth or unsophisticated, but at the same time breweries are actively marketing “women’s” beer. On one hand, proper ladies should never drink beer. On the other hand, if they do then they should drink those beers that are suited to their delicate pallets. I think that conflict is far more sexist than the bikini clad, macro-lager, shillers.

“Anne Scott pouring a Forest Brown at the Stirling House, Gateshead, likes horses and America. Kid her you’re a cowboy.”

Sheesh.

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