So I am flipping through Food & Wine magazine this morning and I happen on a page that looks like wallpaper, literally. It’s got a thin texture and an old-school European hotel type design. It looks like this:

I looked on the prior page and on the next page and there didn’t seem to be any connection between this piece of wallpaper and those pages. Then I looked closer and discovered a tiny brand mark for St. Germain, a new imported liquor brand made from elderflower blossoms. Nice. This is what print advertising should do. Make you interact with it. Make you try to figure it out. What the F is this? Hmmm. It’s interesting. What is it for? Oh, I see, cool. Something surprising. It works. Print ads can work. I then went to the web, looked at their website, remembered some in-store POS I saw. Brand identification cemented. Bravo.

I mentioned this to my lovely wife Caroline and she told me that there was actually an insert attached to the front of that print ad (on the left). I was slightly disappointed – because I think a hard to figure out print ad is singularly bold – until she fished the postcard out of the trash and gave it to me. It was an old school postcard that looked like it was from 100 years ago with a provocative photo on the front and overall it was “aged.” Nice.

This is my new favorite booze brand. I’m not sure how it tastes. Next time I’m at Milk & Honey I’ll give it a go.