True story: This ad campaign made me pretend that I was Norwegian all through college in the states. No, I won't wear a bikini and a bad wig while I parachute to your location just to dance around while you drink beer. I need some beer first, thx.
Aaargh, this is so dumb, it hurts. I bet the guy who came up with this is an ECD somewhere now, bragging about this campaign every chance he gets.
The ad is obviously meant to be a tongue-in-cheek parody of the stereotypical sexy babes and beer ad campaigns, and at first airing, everyone was in on the joke. It was so over the top, with the platinum blond bad wigs as a visual signal of a kitchy spoof.
There was even silly lore details like the model's invented Swedish names.
"Uma Thorensen" was in reality named Avalon Anders. "Karin Kristensen" was Suzanna Keller. "Hilgar Oblief", a name that doesn't even sound Swedish was Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst's name. "Eva Jacobsen" was Jane Frances and the super Swedish-sounding "Ulla Swensen" was played by Peggy Trentini.
Seven months later, however, the Swedish Bikini team had taken on a life of its own making all sorts of appearances in TV shows like "Married with Children". They even appeared on the cover of Playboy in January of 1992.
At that point, the parody was no longer a parody, and Old Milwaukee pulled the plug on this concept. Despite the short run, this ad campaign is still widely remembered.
See also Old Milwaukee - Swedish Bikini Team "Surf Bikinis" and Swedish Bikini Team / "Golden Bikinis"
Client: Old Milwaukee Ad agency: Hal Riney and Partners, San Francisco Group Creative Director: Patrick Scullin Models: Peggy Trentini, Avalon Anders, Suzanna Keller, Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst and Jane Frances
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I don't get it - what does a "Bikini Team" do exactly? Like, are they paid to wear bikinis? We need to track down the guy who made this and ask him what the hell he was thinking.
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PermalinkThe writer of this was actually one of the Adland crew's former bosses, we'll tell you more at the Christmas party, David.
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PermalinkI agree these ads were Kitschy poor taste(I saw them back then) but having read some of your articles( not just this one) I really HATE most of them and you make me wish I never purchased a smartphone!
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PermalinkHow nice to know that you can comfortably read adland on your smartphone! Anyway, not a problem, you can avoid me and just read any of the other writers here, I'm not even the most prolific author.
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PermalinkI hope you're not a writer, I am having such a hard time trying to figure out what you mean here. You hate the ad, or the articles?
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