You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

I’m gonna do something I don’t normally do here on Ad Space, and preface this article with a great big

SPOILER! WARNING!

For, you see, it is impossible to display or discuss this week’s ad without giving away the ending to the 1958 movie Ice Cold in Alex. So if you haven’t seen it, but might like to someday (and you should – it’s pretty great!) now’s your chance to bail.

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Okay, that done? Everyone who’s left is okay with spoilers? Great, let’s go.

So, for the uninitiated, Ice Cold in Alex is a World War II movie, focused on a handful of British soldiers and nurses trying to make their way across the desert to Alexandria ahead of a German advance. The desert proves to be an even deadlier adversary than the enemy soldiers, and, determined to keep them all alive, the captain (who’s developed a bit of a drinking problem) vows not to touch another drop of liquor until they reach Alex, where they’ll celebrate survival with an ice cold lager.

And in the last scene of the movie, after persevering through every trial and tribulation the war and the desert could throw at them, they finally get that lager – and though they don’t mention the brand of beer by name, you can clearly see the word “Carlsberg” printed on the glass. Supposedly, this wasn’t a case of product placement – the filmmakers chose the Danish beer Carlsberg because the other popular beer brands they considered were all German (or at least had German sounding names like Rheingold), which really wouldn’t be appropriate for Allied forces in World War II.

Nevertheless, come the 80’s, some marketing whiz at Carlsberg realized, they could simply air this footage from Ice Cold in Alex unedited, and it’d make a wonderful commercial all on its own.

And I gotta say, as someone who doesn’t even like beer, damn does that look satisfying!