It has been a long time since I wrote anything on this blog.
I just want you to know that I am writing another book, so the Pabst Tonic book has taken a bit of a back seat at the moment.
Down the line I certainly intend to publish the Pabst book. I think you would enjoy reading it.
It has been a while since I have been here on this blog.
I have completed the Pabst Tonic manuscript. It is, however, too short in word count for a traditional publisher.
At the moment I do not know what I will do or what step I will take to come out with a book, which is my goal.
The title for the book is If You Advertise it, People Will Buy it: The Pabst Brewery’s Early Campaign
To Sell Alcohol as Medicine.
If you have any ideas on where or how to publish the book, please contact me.
Happy news to report.
Today I sent the University of Wisconsin Press a Prospectus on the book. They have expressed interest in publishing the book.
Now I just wait to see if the Press wants the full manuscript and illustrations.
Will keep you posted on how things progress.
I like to read about the history of beer.
Recently I finished the book by Lauren Clark called Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day.
Since Colonial time in New England, people drank beer because it was a safe beverage and considered healthy.
When A. Cressy Morrison, the Pabst Advertising Manager from 1887 to 1897, conducted ad campaigns for Pabst Extract, his message centered on the health benefits of the drink.
People drank beer even in the late nineteenth century because it was healthy.
So, in one sense, Cressy’s message made sense to people who wanted a beverage, even one with alcohol, that would benefit them.
The last few weeks I have spent editing the ten chapters.
This past week I decided on the number of illustrations and chose each of them. They will give the reader a sense of the topic or issue I am writing about in a particular chapter. The captions will be finished soon.
The most exciting news, however, is that I have a new working title. Here it is:
If You Advertise It ,
People will Buy It:
Pabst Brewery’s Early Campaign
to Sell Alcohol as Medicine
What do you think?
Yesterday I began the process of editing references I use in the book.
At the same time I am working on the Bibliography as well.
One of the references is Daniel Pope’s book The Making of Modern Advertising [below]. It proved helpful in understanding how the Pabst Brewery fit in with modern advertising in general in the 1890s.
1983 book about the history of advertising
Hope to finish this step by the end of the month.
The working title at the moment is:
Pabst Extract: A Story of Alcohol, Women, Health, and Advertising
It has been a while since I posted here and the reason is, of course, that I have been spending my time on editing the book.
This editing of references will take me the month of September to complete
It is the beginning of July, and I continue to edit the book, chapter by chapter.
I know that I will have the manuscript ready to send the publisher by the end of the year.
All it will take is my patience to walk the journey of regular sessions at the computer to edit the work.
In the nineteenth century it was common practice for a newspaper to include an article favorable to a company or business that advertised in its pages.
Pabst Brewery was no exception to receiving such an article.
A letter addressed to the brewery by a Chicago publishing firm November 15, 1887, read as follows: “In consideration of your giving us an ad of a page in our Journal for one year, for which you are to pay $225, we will take 100 cases of the Malt Tonic and will push the sale of this article to the best of our ability. You are also to have liberty at any time to use our editorial columns regarding the merits of your malt tonic.”
The Best Tonic from Pabst followed in the tradition of patent medicines, or products that companies put out that would cure health problems.
Stephen Fox in his book The Mirror Makers writes: “In the decades after the Civil War, patent medicines became the first product to be advertised on a large scale, the first to aim directly at the consumer with vivid, psychologically clever sales pitches, the first to show – for better or worse – the latent power of advertising.”
The Pabst adman A. Cressy Morrison managed the advertising for the Pabst Tonic from 1889 to 1897.
His many advertising strategies rang with a common theme: Pabst has used its skill in brewing beer to provide a beverage that offers the nutrients necessary for many health problems facing the modern woman.
Morrison, of course, had the example of decades of patent medicine advertising to serve as a model. At times he even referred to Pabst Tonic as a patent medicine.
From 1887, when Pabst came up with its medicinal beverage Best Malt Tonic, the Brewery spared no expense in promoting it.
It became the most advertised of any of the Pabst beverages at that time.
According to the 50th anniversary booklet from Pabst in 1894: “The Best Tonic is probably as well known as any of the company’s products…Today its sales equal or exceed any other malt extract in the world. This supremacy has been attained by merit coupled with the energetic efforts of the company to make it known.”
By the time advertising manager A. Cressy Morrison left the Pabst Brewery in 1897 , the advertising department of the Pabst Brewery was spending annually for advertising more than $1000 a day.
Cressy had kept the name ‘Best Tonic’ before the public with ever-new methods of publicity, including a national magazine advertising campaign.