Hills Bros. Coffee Ad – Sept. 4, 1945

Back when everybody read a newspaper every day, advertisers had to come up with a way to cut through the clutter to grab the reader. After all, we've all seen how every page of the Lorain Journal from the 1920s up until about the 1970s was packed with news items and ads. So the ad agencies had to be creative – and sometimes came up with ideas that seem a little odd or quaint today. 

A good example is the ad above for Hills Bros. Coffee, which ran in the Lorain Journal back on September 4, 1945. The ad compares how pearls are the only thing that oysters produce, and coffee is the only product of Hills Bros. Coffee Inc. It's a little goofy, but the cute illustration accomplishes its goal of "making you look."

And by George, a glass jar just like the one shown in the ad is on eBay right now, with the Hills Bros. coffee still in it – about eighty years later!

Hills Bros. Coffee (of course) is a favorite topic on this blog, as it was my parents' favorite coffee for years. Although these days I'm a big Tim Hortons fan, I bought a can of Hills Bros. a couple months ago for old time's sake and just finished it. I enjoyed it very much. And it was like being back on Skyline Drive again, although I don't make it as strong as Mom did.

Going back to the 1945 ad, I like the way that Hills Bros. is marketed as "good coffee." That's not unlike Old Dutch Beer, whose longtime tagline was: The Good Beer. Maybe that's what attracted my parents to both of them: no gimmicks, no pretentious branding, just a claim to be good.

Hills Brothers Coffee Ad – Nov. 5, 1953

Hills Bros. Coffee remains a favorite topic on this blog – even though I don't drink it.

It was the only coffee I remember my parents ever drinking. The brand was heavily advertised in the Lorain Journal in the 1950s and 60s. Perhaps that's how my parents first became aware of it – tried it – and liked it.

They were loyal to it, that's for sure. When it was on sale at Marc's, they would buy as many as a half-dozen cans at one time. At one point in the 1990s, I counted more than a dozen cans in their basement pantry. It was like money in the bank.

In the Brady household, Dad was the one who made the coffee. He liked it strong, although Mom and Dad both put half and half in theirs. Later, after Dad passed away, Mom still made it strong – and drank it black.

When she became a widow, Mom was funny about her coffee. Since she only drank about a cup a day, she hated wasting the rest of the pot. So she poured it into a carafe and drank it over the next few days. I did my best to encourage her to make a fresh pot every day ("You deserve it, Mom!") but she didn't vary from this habit, right up to the end. But she would make a fresh pot whenever I came over.

Anyway, above is a vintage Hills Bros. ad from the Lorain Journal of November 5, 1953. The gimmick of the ad is a free "Coffee Guide" that was in specially marked cans. At first I thought the guide was a little instruction book – but it was actually a little rectangular scoop.

There are a few on eBay right now, if your Hills Bros. coffee-making is in need of guidance.

Coffee Ads – January 1953

Coffee is something that many of us – especially those of us that are older – look forward to as soon as we wake up. We need it to get going in the morning. I actually get a headache when I don't drink it.

And a good cup of coffee at work is – sad to say – very often the high point of my day. 

It's funny, but most of the young people that I work with don't even drink coffee; they favor energy drinks. And when they do drink coffee, black coffee is out of the question; they prefer iced coffee, with flavored syrup – yecch. Just the thing to warm you up on a cold winter day.

Anyway, seventy years ago, coffee was very often the subject of national ads found in the Lorain Journal. 

Here's one for a coffee that I never knew existed: Borden's Instant Coffee. The ad ran in the Journal back on January 29, 1953.

I guess Elsie just wasn't satisfied producing the stuff that you add to coffee; she wanted a bigger piece of the action. 

Here's a 1946 magazine ad for the product.

I don't buy into the premise that the guy in the ad usually made bad coffee before he discovered Borden's. In the Brady household, it was generally accepted that the male of the species made better coffee (stronger at least).

Here's another vintage ad. I'm not sure if the old gent is smiling because of the coffee's taste, or the way it's being served by his, er, maid (?) or whoever.

And here's a jar that somehow survived all these years.

I'm not a big fan of instant coffee. I tried it a few times out of sheer laziness (anything to get me out the door quicker in the morning), but I always came back to the regular kind.

Speaking of regular coffee, and getting out the door quickly, here's a vintage ad for the preferred coffee of my parents: Hills Brothers. It ran in the Journal on January 22, 1953.

The ad is somewhat amusing. The woman is crestfallen because her husband took it on the lam rather than 'take a second cup' of her obviously bad brew. But was he supposed to take a cup and saucer on the bus?

At least Hills Bros. provides a happy ending to the proceedings, although the man seems to be more interested in his coffee than his pretty, adoring wife. 

Hills Bros. Coffee Ad – September 20, 1951

I stop in at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Leavitt Road every few days, and I see a lot of Cappuccino Blasts® being sold, as well as any number of frozen drinks topped with whipped cream. Yesterday, the person in front of me ordered twelve bucks worth of drinks that looked like chocolate sodas. 

Indeed, the top three best selling drinks at Dunkin' Donuts nationally are the hot caramel macchiato, the caramel iced coffee and hazelnut iced coffee. (Gee, I thought coffee was something you had with dessert. It’s not supposed to be the dessert!)

Anyway, I’m beginning to wonder: doesn’t anybody drink plain old coffee anymore?

Which leads me to the topic of today’s post, namely a classic plain old coffee – Hills Brothers Coffee to be exact. I’ve written about it before (here), as it was my parents’ favorite coffee for many years.

The ad below for the classic brew ran in the Lorain Journal on September 20, 1951.

It’s an interesting ad, stressing the social aspect of drinking coffee. The pitch is that you can ‘make friends’ serving Hill Bros. Coffee because of its ‘friendlier flavor.’

Uh-huh.

That sales angle would never fly now. Tastes change, and people drink what they like. The old-time coffees such as Maxwell House, Chase & Sanborn, etc. probably enjoy minuscule market shares compared to Starbucks or Dunkin’ (even if I don’t see anyone buying just plain coffee there).

And many of the social opportunities where you might drink coffee – such as the after-tennis get together depicted in the ad – have probably gone away in the last seventy years as well, resulting in coffee drinking becoming a largely singular experience: something you drink to wake up.

Hills Bros. Coffee Ad – March 5, 1968

Yesterday's blog featured a Cutlass ad that may very have helped define my parents' choice of cars (assuming that they were susceptible to newspaper advertising).

Continuing that line of reasoning, here's an ad that may have led to Mom and Dad choosing Hills Brothers as their all-time favorite coffee.

The ad – which took up 3/4 of a page – ran in the Lorain Journal on March 5, 1968 – 50 years ago this week.

Mom and Dad were super loyal to Hills Brothers. For decades, it was the only coffee they ever drank. When it was on sale at Marc's, I would pick up three or four cans for them. Once, they had thirteen cans of it in the cupboard!

(I always thought Hills Brothers was pretty good, and it probably helps explain why I'm not a coffee elitist today. However, now I drink Tim Hortons coffee – the choice of millions of Canucks – each morning.)

Interestingly, Hills Brothers was one of the few coffees with an actual advertising mascot. In this case, the turban-wearing coffee drinker was known officially as the "Taster." (The iconic figure is immortalized in the form of a bronze statue, which you can read about here.) I think he gave the can a lot of character.

Here he is as part of a vintage easel-backed point-of-purchase display, courtesy of liveauctioneers.com.

Unfortunately, the coffee-sipping Arab was 'canned' in the 1990s.

The reasoning behind his retirement is explained in this interesting article. The article also reveals that the brand is now enjoying increased popularity nationwide because of a recent redesign of the packaging.

And here's a link to a whole Pinterest page devoted to Hills Brothers coffee packaging, signage and history.

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What’s your favorite coffee?

Do you like it brewed the old-fashioned way, where you open a can (or bag) and scoop it into a basket/filter? (To me, smelling that ground coffee is the best part!) Or are you a pod person?

Be sure to leave a comment!