Blast from the past: Tennent’s beer’s ‘lager lovelies’
Scottish brewer Tennent’s was the company behind the sexist marketing campaign and at the time the pictures were deemed as socially acceptable as calling an attractive woman ‘a bit of alright’, or slapping a female colleague on the backside.
Tins of lager featured a bevy (pardon the pun) of beauties wearing an off-the-shoulder blouse, a swimsuit or a negligee, each topped by a perm and a smouldering look: Pat Lying Low, Linda in Dreamland, Penny at Night.
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Hide AdBetween 1965 and 1991, beauty pageant queens, professional models and ‘girls-next-door’ were splashed across tinnies. Unsurprisingly, using sex appeal to sell beer was a marketing goldmine during an age of massive gender inequality, Page Three girls, Pan’s People prancing around Top of the Pops in their intimate apparel and the dreadful Benny Hill Show.
The Lovelies developed such a loyal following that today the rarest tins have been known to change hands for thousands of pounds. But as the years went on, the marketing tactic was fast approaching its sell-by date, the Lovelies branding was ditched and the beer googles put away.
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