Dewars Scotch Whiskey

It very wee could be. Whether or not it is, it's a short, sweet little vignette showing a group of guys doing scottish highland dancing, or at least their own loose interpretation thereof (they look like they've been hitting the sauce pretty hard between takes). The cameraman was obviously undercranking the machine, so the action appears in slow motion. It's barely a minute long, yet delightful while it lasts.

It's strange to think that film-makers grasped the concept of using film to advertise products before the idea of using film to tell stories occurred to them, but here you have the proof. As another reviewer mentioned, Admiral Cigarettes is generally considered to be the first advertisement but this one can't have been far behind. As all the other reviewers have also noted, this isn't very good. A bunch of men in kilts jig about on a stage in slow motion for a while, no doubt having a whale of a time, but the rest of us are left strangely unmoved. Wouldn't it have been nice if, after efforts like this, ad men had decided film wasn't the medium to use for peddling their wares after all?

This short is a very early advertisement for Scotch Whiskey showing some men trying very hard to look like Scottish Highlanders, dancing in front of a billboard in slow motion. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous and the men look like complete idiots. One reviewer (Snow Leopard) said the goofy acting was meant to indicate they had drunk the title product, but I'm not exactly sure how anyone could possibly expect audiences to pick up on that at all.

What I consider to be the first advertisement film is Edison's own 1894 "The Barbershop" which is often never described as such, but actually appears to be advertising the "shave and a haircut for one nickel" fad. This film is still historically interesting and mildly amusing. Go on and take a look strictly for the historical interest, but don't expect much as the "Highlanders" don't drink a drop of the whiskey they're advertising.

I thought the Edison short ADMIRAL CIGARETTES (1897) was the first commercial but I have since discovered this short promoting Dewar's Scotch Whiskey made the same year. Whichever one came first has the dubious distinction of being the worlds first commercial motion picture. Several men in kilts dance (in slow motion) in front of a banner advertising Dewar's Scotch. No one drinks any whiskey in the short but from the way they dance they must have imbibed quite a bit before the cameras began turning! This and the Admiral Cigarette short are all the proof we need that merchants quickly discovered moving pictures could be used to add a sensationalism to their product that print ads could not. Long live commercialism!

Supposedly one of the film filmed advertisements, this probably wouldn't get far in a modern marketing meeting but it is of interest because, even back in the very first days of cinema, the technology was seen as a way of shifting product. The actual advert itself appears to be a poorly positioned sign showing the name of the whiskey with a handful of men dressed in Scottish garb dancing (badly) in front of it. The dance is not done in any sort of structured way and it is not so much a presentation of anything as it is a bit like a couple of p1ssed up blokes messing around.

I suppose it is interesting as a piece of media history but outside of that it is, well, a couple of blokes dancing badly in front of a small billboard.