![]() As he revved it up, he did three different levels of noise that sounded like Raiiiiii-nieeeeeer-beeeeeer.” Pre-mega breweries “He had one of those high-pitched motorcycles so he came over to me and was revving it up. “There was one guy he was racing who knew I worked for Rainier Brewery. “My brother used to race motocross bikes,” he said. Learn also has fond memories of the motorcycle commercial and claims to have pitched the idea. I wasn’t always involved in all the commercials, but some of it.” “We also did commercials downtown with the Wild Rainier. They’d run around in a parade, or in the evening if there was a big local bar, we’d show up.” Wacky ads That would usually be a cooperation with the distributor. “We’d put the outfits on them and let them run around a bit. ![]() “If we did the Ellensburg rodeo, we’d probably go to the university to find students who wanted to make a few bucks and drink some beer,” he said. When distributors or event organizers requested appearances by the large Wild Rainier bottles, Learn recalls that occasionally people were recruited to parade in the beer costumes. It almost became part of the entertainment to say, ‘Did you see the new one?’” I obviously wasn’t of the age to buy the product, but I sure was entertained by it. “It wasn’t a pitchman doing this it was a funny herd of bottles running around, so it did stand out. “Those are the things that create special attention for advertising, where it’s not an intrusion, but something that you stop and watch almost as a 30-second piece of entertainment,” he said. He recognizes it now as a style geared more to brand advertising and product recognition. Unusual for that era’s TV ads, the campy segments grabbed people’s attention mostly for entertainment value, Davis added, even among children growing up during the 1970s and early 1980s. What the heck was that, a herd of bottles? ” Those type of ads really cut through the clutter and made you stop and look. People are in the bottles and running around. “And I remember the campaigns where they had the Rainier bottles that were like a herd of deer. “I remember the one of a motorcycle going down a Washington highway, and kind of the sound of the motor bike making out Rainier Beer,” Davis said. He’s co-owner and creative director at the Spokane graphic design firm that does web development. ![]() It was in a green can and we sold a significant amount of that in California.” Pure entertainmentįor many longtime Spokane residents, like Zipline Interactive’s Shawn Davis, the Rainier commercials from 30 to 40 years ago have stuck in memory banks. “In California, we had a brand that we called Rainier Ale. We were in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii. “We were a pretty popular beer in the Northwest and around the Seattle market. “That was part of our base, and that’s why we sold so much beer,” Learn said. Learn said he often worked with longtime Spokane beer distributor Joey August and his son Nick August. Rainier was a sponsor for the hydroplane races on Lake Coeur d’Alene, Learn said, so he helped with promotions for that as well as for regional motorcycle races and rodeos. I had the territory of Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and the state on Montana for doing all the promotional stuff from the brewery.” “I worked about half-time in advertising,” Learn said. The beer mainly is brewed under contract in California, although in 2016, the company began brewing its Pale Mountain Ale in Woodinville at the Redhook Brewery.ĭuring the 1970s, Learn worked for Rainier Brewing in Seattle with the company’s internal advertising department and doing promotions with distributors. Today, Rainier is owned by Pabst Brewing Co., which closed the Seattle brewery in 1999. People bought our product for a long time, and Rainier Brewing was the biggest seller in the whole state of Washington.” He did behind-the-scenes work supporting some of the television spots and posters of the time. “People like to talk about how crazy and goofy the ads for Rainier were,” said Jack Learn, 74, a Rathdrum retiree and former Rainier employee. Another TV ad simply showed a motorcycle rider on a rural highway heading toward Mount Rainier, with bike sounds revving “Raiiiiii-nieeeeeer-beeeeeer.”
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