The start of summer begins with high hopes and anticipation. After all, summertime is all about big plans and bigger dreams. This retro Greyhound ad speaks directly to those emotions, and with a heavy dose of 70’s swank to appeal to the time period’s younger generation.
Marketing to a younger audience isn’t a new challenge. In the 1970’s, the music was revolutionary, the attitude was anti-establishment, and the norm was anything but. Marketers hastened to take note from the day’s idols. Hence the psychedelic, Yellow Submarine-style artwork seen here. This young couple is going their own way and doing their own thing – but on Greyhound Bus roller skates.
Despite the anti-war movement, the early 1970’s also brought a budding excitement for the country’s bicentennial in 1976. The ad’s text plays on that, stating:
“We can carry you to seashores and trout streams and grandma’s house. We can show you mountains and milkcows and every kind of skyscraper this country ever built. We can bring you America. And we can take you there.”
And of course, they take you there in “air-conditioned, reclining-seated, restroom-equipped comfort. On a super-great, super-new, Super 7 Scenicruiser = the best bus of them all.”
FUN FACT: The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine artwork was done by German artist Heinz Edelman. It is his most well-known work, but frequently attributed to Peter Max. There continues to be controversy regarding who can lay claim to the artistic direction of this ground-breaking art.