Swedish Bikini Team

The Swedish Bikini Team was a group of American female models who appeared in an advertising campaign for Old Milwaukee beer. These commercials ran for several months in 1991 in the United States,[1] playing with American stereotypes of Scandinavian women being blonde and having big breasts. The premise of the commercials was that a group of bored or thirsty men were "saved" by the Swedish Bikini Team. Other commercials would focus on a group of men male bonding on a hunting trip and saying "Guys, it does not get any better than this", to which a narrator would say the man was wrong and an Old Milwaukee truck would drive miles off road toward them claiming "it improved", "..and when the Swedish Bikini Team showed up, it got somewhat better."[2]

While the campaign generated widespread interest, the advertisements were eventually dropped after protests by the National Organization for Women and female employees of the Pabst Brewing Company.[3]

While this advertising campaign provoked controversy, similar campaigns using attractive spokesmodels to sell beverages have followed in the U.S., with less resistance — such as the Coors twins Diane and Elaine Klimaszewski, and the "Fantanas": spokesmodels for Fanta soft drinks.[citation needed]

  1. ^ "Old Milwaukee - Swedish Bikini Team / "Golden Bikinis"". Adland. February 1, 1991. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  2. ^ Reichert, Tom, Jacqueline Lambiase (2006). Sex in consumer culture: the erotic content of media and marketing (illustrated ed.). Routledge. p. 162. ISBN 0-8058-5091-0.
  3. ^ Twitchell, James B (1996). Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture. Columbia University Press. p. 758. ISBN 0-231-10325-5.