Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22091 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| VAUX COMMERCIAL: THE WINDMILL COWGATE | 1965 | 1965-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 35mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Sound Duration: 42 sec Credits: Organisations: Vaux Breweries, Erwin Wasey Ltd Individual: Kent Walton Genre: Advertising Subject: Sport |
| Summary A 30 second television advertisement for Vaux Breweries filmed at The Windmill public house at Cowgate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ITV sports commentator Kent Walton watches as a member of the local darts team takes a shot at a board before heading to the bar where he has a pint of Vaux beer with former Newcastle United footballer Frank Brennan. |
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Description
A 30 second television advertisement for Vaux Breweries filmed at The Windmill public house at Cowgate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ITV sports commentator Kent Walton watches as a member of the local darts team takes a shot at a board before heading to the bar where he has a pint of Vaux beer with former Newcastle United footballer Frank Brennan.
Title: The Windmill, Cowgate
The advert begins with a shot of a dartboard inside The Windmill public house in Newcastle. A man stands at the oche and...
A 30 second television advertisement for Vaux Breweries filmed at The Windmill public house at Cowgate in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. ITV sports commentator Kent Walton watches as a member of the local darts team takes a shot at a board before heading to the bar where he has a pint of Vaux beer with former Newcastle United footballer Frank Brennan.
Title: The Windmill, Cowgate
The advert begins with a shot of a dartboard inside The Windmill public house in Newcastle. A man stands at the oche and throws a dart which hits a double-twenty for the Windmill darts team. They are congratulated by Kent Walton. The winner indicates he'd like a pint of beer. Walton walks over and joins a man at the bar who turns out to be Frank Brennan, a former Newcastle United footballer.
Title: Frank Brennan
Walton and Brennan chat while a barmaid pulls a pint of beer. On the bar in front of them is a display of Vaux Light Brown bottled beers. With his pint in hand, Frank takes a drink.
The advertisement ends witha pack shot of a Vaux tankard of beer. The Vaux jingle features men singing “Vaux beer brewed in the North by people who love good beer”.
Context
This is an example of a cinema advertisement for Vaux Brewery, one of ten commercials sponsored by the brewery in the mid-1960s preserved at North East Film Archive. Vaux Brewery operated in Sunderland from 1806 up until 1999 when it was closed due to advice from London based financiers.
The founder of the company was Cuthbert Vaux, who produced the company's most infamous drinks, the Vaux’s Stout and the Double Maxim, both of which are featured in the advertisements and were the most...
This is an example of a cinema advertisement for Vaux Brewery, one of ten commercials sponsored by the brewery in the mid-1960s preserved at North East Film Archive. Vaux Brewery operated in Sunderland from 1806 up until 1999 when it was closed due to advice from London based financiers.
The founder of the company was Cuthbert Vaux, who produced the company's most infamous drinks, the Vaux’s Stout and the Double Maxim, both of which are featured in the advertisements and were the most common drinks they brewed. The first brewery location for the company was on the corner of Matlock Street and Cumberland Street. However, they were forced to move when the land was purchased for the Central Railway Station, their second location on Castle Street from 1875, where they would stay until the company’s dissolution. They also held another brewery in Union Street for thirty years from 1844 until the 1870s. The Vaux & Co. brewery was a family owned business. After Cuthbert Vaux died in 1878 the company was passed on to his sons, John and Edwin. John Vaux’s sons, named Cuthbert and Ernest, would go on to join Edwin in the brewing business after their father’s passing. Even parts of management were family members. Frank Nicholson, who joined as a manager in the late 1890s, married the daughter of John Vaux, Amy, and became director. Upon becoming director, Frank Nicholson oversaw a variety of big changes for the brewery. Vaux expanded into a bigger company under Frank; he organised a union with North East Breweries Ltd., creating the second largest brewers in England, with Vaux and Associated Breweries Ltd. Brewing companies were also purchased in Sheffield, and in 1972 Vaux expanded overseas, with the acquisition of Fred Koch Brewery in New York, but this venture only lasted three years. In the 1990s they also made their fatal expansion into hotels, which would ultimately lead to the end of Vaux Breweries. The Vaux breweries were closed in 1999 and the company then turned to focus on its investments in hotels and restaurants, under advice from London financier Alex Brown. This was a shock to many in the area, even some within the company itself, as the brewing sector was very successful with profits of £50 million. The Chairman of the company, Paul Nicholson, was so displeased with the news that he resigned from his post. Ultimately the closure would leave 700 out of a job and a hole in the spirit of the city. After rebranding as Swallow Group Plc. the new company did not last very long on its own. In 2000 the company was taken over by Whitbread. From here the Swallow Hotels became Marriott hotels and the pubs were turned into brands such as Brewers Fayre. In 2003 the Swallow brand itself was purchased by London Inn Group, however, by 2006 this went into administration. In 2014 the last hotel located in Glasgow had closed. The Vaux Breweries were closely linked to the culture and community of Sunderland. They served as the team shirt sponsors for Sunderland AFC from the mid-1980s until the brewery’s closure in 1999 and the headquarters on Castle Street in central Sunderland, played a big part in its architectural landscape. This headquarters was demolished in 2008 and as of 2014 it has been a discontinuous construction site for a new base for Sunderland City Council. Their advertisements were made firstly to promote their products, but also served to highlight their chain of local pubs and bars around the North East. Their adverts commonly featured their trademark dray and horses, appealing historical symbols of the Vaux Brewery, which spoke to the tradition and trustworthiness of the company. At the end of the adverts the company jingle would play out, ‘Vaux Beer brewed in the North- for people who know good beer’. These beer adverts were narrated by, or featured, famous sports commentator Kent Walton, who became famous for commentating on tennis, football, and most notably on wrestling coverage on ITV’s ‘World of Sport’. Usually the adverts would also feature other celebrities enjoying their drinks with the locals, lending credibility to the Vaux brand using local or regional heroes. Alongside Walton in this advertisement is Frank Brennan. Brennan was a well-known centre-half for Newcastle United. He made 349 appearances for the club in his decade long stint and was on the team for the club’s back to back FA Cup victories in 1951 and 1952. He left the club in 1955 over internal disputes but is remembered as one of the greatest defensive players to ever grace the team. He played alongside club greats such as Jackie Milburn and Joe Harvey. After leaving the club Brennan focused on his own sports shop and would go on to manage North Shields, and briefly Darlington. Celebrity endorsement is nothing new in the advertising industry. American author Samuel Clemens, better known under the pen name Mark Twain, writer of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was paid to pitch for fountain pens by the Conklin Pen Co. of Toledo, Ohio, back in 1903. Advertising of the 1950s hyped the allure of a product using an array of movie stars. Director Alfred Hitchcock promoted the Western Union telegraph service whilst on location for North by Northwest and Doris Day was an unlikely match for the promotion of Harvester road rolling equipment. Whitman’s chocolate company paid for their product endorsements with free chocolates and a mention of a star’s latest film, recruiting Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne as star spokespersons. It’s hard to imagine today’s top stars ever selling out for a box of chocolates when Brad Pitt can earn $4 million dollars for a Super Bowl commercial! The influence of sports personalities and athletes also has a long history in the marketing world. Fans were always a profitable target for the ad man. One bizarre confluence of product and sports star was the use of Muhammad Ali to sell d-Con roach traps in America. The north east's famous brands have not been slow in attracting new customers through celebrity sports men, as the Vaux commercials show. Newcastle-based Scott and Turner registered Andrews (Liver Salts) in 1909, and moved into screen advertising during the boom-time 50s to capitalise on their worldwide market. The brand used a variety of marketing techniques including celebrity endorsement – the 1953 Footballer of the Year Stanley Matthews promoted Andrews on film in a commercial which also featured match footage from the 1953 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium contested between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers. The spirit of Vaux Brewery was continued by two of its former directors, who would go on to form the Maxim Brewery, buying the original recipes of their classic drinks, including Double Maxim. More recently, as of Easter 2019, there has been a revival of the Vaux Brewery name. An attempt to open another Vaux Brewery with a more modern take on the Vaux name is trying to fill the void left in Sunderland by the original closure References: https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/legendary-vaux-brewing-name-set-for-sunderland-return-1-9590081 https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/timeline-the-history-of-sunderland-s-vaux-brewery-as-it-prepares-for-city-rebirth-1-9590412 https://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/gallery-vaux-beer-mats-1970s-80s/ https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/former-vaux-breweries-boss-will-be-delighted-if-new-sunderland-brewery-succeeds-1-9591489 https://www.sunderlandecho.com/our-region/sunderland/1960s-vaux-beer-advert-shot-at-once-popular-sunderland-pub-released-in-search-for-lost-film-gems-1-9333908 https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/17521521.those-were-the-drays-memories-of-vaux-brewery-20-years-after-its-closure/ https://wearsideonline.com/vaux-brewery/ https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/sunderland-council-vaux-civic-centre-15262298 https://www.nufc.co.uk/club/history/hall-of-fame/frank-brennan https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/frank-brennan-newcastle-uniteds-giant-8768027 https://insights.digitalmediasolutions.com/articles/history-celebrity-endorsements Related Collections: http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-shepherd-and-shepherdess-beamish http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-copper-beech-darlington http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-fairfield-arms-stockton http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-pennywell-comrades-club-sunderland http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-middlesbrough-co-operative-club http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-beresford-arms-whalton http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-thorney-close-sports-club-sunderland |
