Reading the Ad Pages: The Copywriters Nobody Knew Were There

Somebody in the transfer trade was reading the advertising pages and writing back.

Once you spot it, you can’t stop seeing it. A significant number of these sheets are direct parodies of specific national ad campaigns — and they only work if you assume the customer knew the original by heart.

Avis

“I’m #3, I Don’t Try At All” — Roach, dated 1978. A man in a hammock.

The joke is Avis. “We’re only No. 2. We try harder” ran from 1962 and is one of the most celebrated campaigns in advertising history. To get the transfer, you have to know the slogan — and in 1978, everybody did.

Paul Masson

“I’ll Drink Any Wine Before It’s Time.”

Paul Masson’s “We will sell no wine before its time” was fronted by Orson Welles and was, for a stretch of the seventies, one of the most parodied lines in America. Here it is on a t-shirt.

And the rest

• Budweiser — “Beer Doesn’t Make You Smart, It Made Bud Wiser”
• Olympia — “It’s the Water,” used straight
• Skoal — “a pinch is all it takes,” also straight
• Chevrolet Vega — “a little Chevy goes a long way,” which given the Vega’s reputation for rust reads now as accidental comedy
• “I’m Only Here for the Beer” — lifted from a British lager campaign of the period

What this tells us about the people who made them

This is the finding that surprised us most. These are not generic novelty slogans. They are topical, they are specific, and they have a shelf life.

Which means the transfer houses employed people whose job was to watch national advertising and turn it around fast enough to still be current. Copywriters, in other words — working in what everyone assumed was a printing business.

It also means these sheets are datable by their jokes. A parody only works while the original is running. That’s a dating tool nobody uses, and we’re going to start.

Help us find more

We’re certain we’re missing some — campaigns that were obvious in 1975 and mean nothing now.

If you look at a sheet in our catalogue and recognise the advertisement it’s mocking, tell us: irononstation@gmail.com. We’ll add it to the record with credit.

Browse Slogans & Statements · How to date a transfer