During the 1940’s the Barbey’s Inc. Sunshine Brewing Company located in Reading, PA initiated a large and successful marketing campaign centered around hunting, fishing, and outdoor scenes to promote and advertise their beer.
The brewery turned to famous and esteemed American artist Harold Anderson to paint hunting and fishing themed art; among the art created was the Sunshine Beer Dog Signs. At the time Anderson was famous for creating artwork for national magazines, billboards, posters, and designing national advertising campaigns. The brewery made various signs and prints from Anderson’s work, most of which were scenes and images of hunters, hunting bird dogs, and wild game. The Sunshine Beer Dog Signs range from cardboard signs and lithographs to postcards and coasters.
The most well known sign of these advertisements was the Sunshine Beer Hunting Bird Dog lithograph (pictured to the right). A large wood framed lithograph picture approximately 24″ wide by 36″ high that portrayed a hunter in a cabin drinking a quart of Sunshine Beer and his hunting dog resting it’s head on the hunters lap. The litho also had various images and descriptions of other hunting bird dogs around the edge of the litho. The tagline on the sign read “Extra Light – Extra Good – Sunshine Beer” which was also used on other marketing campaigns from the brewery.
A series of die cut cardboard round signs were created with with individual hunting bird dog heads and wild game on them; among these were an Irish Setter, Beagle, Boxer, English Receiver, and a Pheasant. Another similar series was created but in the form of three dimensional square die-cut cardboard signs; among these signs were a Beagle, Collie, Pointer, and a Boxer. Coasters and postcards with a variety of hunting dogs were created as well.
This concept was used widely over the years in different uses and was a very successful marketing campaign. Even some of the local competing breweries like the Old Reading Brewing Company located in Reading, PA and the F&S Brewing Company located in Shamokin, PA used similar hunting, fishing, and outdoors concepts to drive traffic and advertise their products as well.
Below are a few examples of the Sunshine Beer Dog items:
