In the mid 1930s, however, animated cinema had a resurgence in commercials. The films were extremely professionally made, but most were made outside of Norway, mainly in Germany and in Czechoslovakia. But these were at least films made for Norwegian goods and companies. Some of the films were just dubbed Norwegian versions of foreign films, but most of them included longer segments specially made for the Norwegian version, and some of the films were directly made for the Norwegian market.

These films differed in techniques and style. The animated cartoon still dominated, but the standard has made the transition from paper to cels. Many of the films were made with puppets and other objects. Twenty of them were made in color, and at least three were abstract films in the style of Oskar Fischinger. The Norwegian advertising industry was professionalized in the 1930's. At the Stockholm exhibition in 1930, the Scandinavian advertisers were introduced to the German Bauhaus movement, and this influenced the industry in Norway both to professionalism and a new visual and artistic approach. This can be seen in many of the animated cinema commercials made in the late 30s.

Competition Breeds Inventiveness
J.L.Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik is still the leading company in the Norwegian tobacco industry, as it was in the early 1920s. But its position were seriously threatened by American and British companies who, through the tobacco trust, BATCO Ltd., tried to conquer the Norwegian market. BATCO filled Norwegian newspapers and magazines with advertisements for their products. With Tiedemann in the lead, the Norwegian tobacco producers had to answer. While the competition in the press was tough, it seems that Tiedemann & Co ruled the ground quite alone in the cinemas.

Heading the advertising department at Tiedemann was Halvor Andresen. Back from marketing studies in the U.S., he introduced modern marketing to Tiedemann. With Andresen at the helm, the advertising costs at Tiedemann increased every year through the 1920s. In 1930, the BATCO war ended with the founding of a new company with both Tiedemann and BATCO as owners. This is another reason for the lack of animated Tiedemann commercials in the early 1930s, but it doesn't explain the total stop in the making of animated cinema commercials in 1930.

The Medina Campaign
In the late 1930s, Tiedemanns advertising costs reached a new peak, and so they became more inventive in their advertising approach than ever. The introduction of a new cigarette brand (named Medina) made them try new ways of marketing. In the radio you could hear Medina classical concerts, and in the cigarette packets you would find collecting cards with haute couture from Paris. Tiedemann even invested in an autogirocopter, a plane that was used only to promote the Medina cigarettes. Meanwhile, in the cinemas, they used animation to sell the Medina brand.

The Medina films are quite different from the tobacco commercials of the 20s, both in style and content. While the Teddy films from the late 20s were humorous and quite rough in their approach, the Medina films are delicate, elegant and even abstract. As a parallel to the American Lucky Strike campaign, Medina was Tiedemanns attempt to make women become smokers in the name of sophistication, elegance and equality. It worked.

It is strange today, when people don't even smoke on television any more, and when all advertising for tobacco and alcohol are strictly banned in Norway, to see how these films tried to convince the audience of the advantages of cigarette smoking. The inventiveness, quality and variation in animated audiovisuals of these spots are quite impressive, and the commercials are among the best advertising films ever shown in Norway. Maybe it is because a product like tobacco, which is difficult to sell with plain objective arguments, ultimately stimulates the advertisers to use their fantasy and imagination.

A teddy bear and the mascot of the cigarette brand, named Teddy, was a character in several animated commercials for Tiedemann. A typical Teddy film is the 1927 Teddy's biltur (Teddy's Car Ride ) animated by Niels Sinding-Hansen for Walter Fyrst, one of the leading filmmakers in Norway before WWII. In this spot, Teddy is out driving, and he gets hungry, so he stops at a restaurant. While he's inside eating, a man flattens all four tires on Teddy's car. Out from the restaurant, Teddy discovers what has happened, stops to think, and lights a cigarette. Inventively, he blows four smoke rings that fit nicely around the flat wheels of his car. He smiles and drives happily away on his wheels of smoke. Sinding-Hansen made at least five more films for Tiedemann in this style in 1927-28.