80s Advert Icon Hated by the Suits Upstairs, but Loved by the Public

Hofmeister - Sportsman - 1986 - UK Advert



Those were the days! When cheap lager appealed to kids! However seriously, this was an exceptional though very dated series of adverts, that very much continue the staple of the best 80s adverts being the funny ones. Back when beer was highly regarded as man's drink before the virtue of certain liberalism that was the ladette culturee in the mid-90s, here was a costumed up bear with a post-modern, "Madness"-inspired pork pie hat, and causal yellow jacket, who is a real jack-of-all-trades, but seemingly, master of everything! The character in question is called George the Hofmeister Bear, who in this, shows off his football skills, and some great camera trickery (or string pulling) of a beer pint glass being kept in the air using numerous parts of his body, and the editing is well executed too.

Beating David Hasselhoff to the nickname "Hofmeister", the slogan of the ad was, to "Follow the Bear", and for some time people did and bought Hofmeister beer. The advertising campaign was pulled after complaints about the bear appealing to children. Sadly Hofmeister lager, made in Britain was discontinued in 2003. This had been growing preference for stronger but paler beers/lagers from the continent since the 60s/70s long before the famous advertising campaign. However, the ad remains unforgotten, usually found to be appearing in the Top 100 UK Ads ever-type show, and appearing in people's personal favourites. There's even a Facebook fan group, displaying the bear as a legend:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&viewas=0&gid=33515030874