Well, in a way. The big metal ones have been around a fair bit longer than that. In the 80s an advertising campaign would start that has yet to be rivaled (in our opinion) by a certain ginger drink. Barrs’ ‘Made in Scotland from Girders’ slogan has been running for 30 years and those that are old enough still repeat it today.
The premise of the slogan is a pretty simple one, Irn-Bru makes you strong. It doesn’t hurt that there is a supposed secret ingredient for taste and a diluted iron girder would happen to look rather orangey. The campaign must have worked, I still remember the advert with the steam-roller and I would have been 2 at the time. It’s one of slogans that you remember from your youth. I believed it would make me strong. I believed it in the same way as I believed grannies everywhere who told me that eating home made soup would put hairs on my chest. Well I ate a lot of that homemade soup and it worked (well sort of)… Hopefully it didn’t do the same thing to girls…answers on a postcard!
In 2011 we created a design inspired by the nostalgia around the slogan which became incredibly popular. Though a few of the younger ones had to have it explained to them, and I can’t count how many times I’ve asked what a ‘Girder’ is. After 5 years we felt that it was time to revisit it, and, it just so happened to coincide with the anniversary. Complete coincidence I promise!
