If you can involve the viewing public's imagination in advertising, it is never boring and your product will sail off the shelves! How so, you may ask?
Consider the following signature items: a Holstein cow packing box, cool camel, serial posting of road-side advertisements, red hot chili pepper, sign for a large egress, a two finger behind-the-head photo opportunity, windmills, a partially eaten apple, a chicken scratching, distance marker to a drug store. You are able to identify the product(s) promoted instantly. (Some of these date to before the turn of the century so may not now be familiar.)
These symbols either in print or on television bring to mind a product. The advertising budgets are long past spent but the images remain. That's great advertising.
The household cleaner, Bon Ami has used the yellow chick with the words "hasn't scratched yet" as a promotion for at least fifty years. To those who haven't had the experience of raising chickens, the term, "scratched", has no meaning.
When a chicken hatches (emerges from the shell), it is dependent on what it can find to eat, be it bugs, grass, or the farmer's mash. It is only after it reaches a degree of maturity that it begins to use the nails on the end of its toes to scratch the dirt in search of food. Thus, a soft touch to an surface is implied. What better than having a cute chicken for an advertisement.
Unbeknownst to Gary Larsen, his Holstein cows would become an even more familiar sight to computer users. Far Sides had and still has a following that are amused by the antics of his cows.
Gateway which started in an old barn just North of Sioux City Iowa printed its boxes with the familiar black and white blobs that are typical of the dairy cow that produces the majority of the milk which we drink. This was done more to imprint in our minds the "difference" between Gateway and Big Blue and all the rest.
What Gateway achieved was to build on the popularity of Larsen's critters, especially among the learned ones at the universities and other places. Now the familiar black and white boxes represent a computer, but in the depths of our memory it still brings to mind some cartoon of cows doing only what cows can do best; make fun of us all.
Who hasn't seen the road-side marker measuring the distance to Wall Drug. What in the world is Wall Drug and where is it? It isn't what you think.
Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota is a roadside shenanigan that is a testimony to the ingenuity of its owners. About the only thing between Denver and Chicago worthy of a stop is Wall Drug. Unlike Disney World, and the multitude of amusement parks. Wall Drug represents a bit of Americana that has almost disappeared with the advent of the interstate. Take a walk back to the 50's before Ike proposed a system that would link the country together at high speed. On most every state and federal highway on the outskirts of cities and towns were advertisements for some private museum or amusement. From Washington to Miami were ads for alligators, wild animals, Indian villages, civil war sites, etc. Mostly they are all gone now as the interstate simply bypassed the smaller town, and travelers rushed onward to their destination. But Wall Drug remains.
The parking lot is full. The "free" ice water is in fact free. Photo-opportunities abound with stuffed animals that you can pose with and of course there is food and games to be played. Mostly though it is a good place to stop, stretch your legs, have a few laughs, buy a postcard or so and in general have a good time. And of course this is South Dakota where you can see forever. (Wall is on the edge of the bad-lands and worth the stop for the view if nothing else.)
< h2 bold> Joe Camel
The cigarette industry has been given a bad rap by the do-gooders and the Government. Now they are trying to rewrite history and forget that tobacco has long been a part of our culture. In particular, if anyone should pay for the crimes of the past it is the Government that has collected federal, state and local taxes on the sale of tobacco products.
The sly look of Joe Camel reaches out to the youth of this country. It says; "why not?" It's an in-your-face advertisement. And cigarettes need not ever be mentioned.
Roger Miller among others immortalized Burma Shave's road-side signs. They were there for the amusement of the driving public. Having once spotted a sign, your attention was riveted to the side of the road seeking a further rhyming partner, until the last; Burma Shave.
Did Burma Shave come in a can, a bottle, a cake of soap? You never were to find out as you read the signs. But for sure, you remembered the jingles and laughed at the thought. Buy Burma Shave? Maybe.
A new series of advertisements has reached the public through the media of television and the press. In a field of potatoes is a hot pepper.
The implication is that not only are Dodge's trucks different but they are, what else? Hot!
Would be remise without bringing in the master of entertainment and advertisement. Barnum's shows were so successful he couldn't get the audience to leave so that even more could enter and be entertained. His solution, the doorway marked; to the large egress. Once outside, the paying crowd recognizing they had been duped, held no grudge but laid more money on the counter for another entrance fee.
So the large egress sign didn't promote an exit, rather it promoted the promoter. P. T. Barnum was certainly no "humbug".
Seldom has a salute been used to promote a product. But the Playboy Bunnies will survive long after the glossy has degraded due to the use of slick paper with a high acid content and frequent perusal of the content.
The general public never recognizing that it was paying tribute to H. Hefner with each symbolic two finger salute. Thus creating their own bunnies by Kodak or Polaroid.
Mention jousting with windmills and Don Quixote, Salvador Dali and other impressionist artists come to mind. Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra when he created the Don and his faithful squire Sancho Panza was perhaps sticking his thumb in the public's eye. But never has he been criticized for enriching our lives with his tales of the knight-errant.
Probably no author has had so many illustrators create works of art for his writings. Without doubt Dali (who along with Cervantes must in his heart have believed himself to be Don Quixote) produced his version of the Don and his squire-errant for us all to enjoy and not unlike Cervantes, tweaks us with his sense of propriety.
Of course the computer company called Apple. When Apple was written off as a technology company unable to compete in the world of Microsoft, what happens? As though Lazarus arising from the dead, it introduces models that far outshine the competition.
So perhaps we had taken a bite of the apple and laid it aside as we embraced other computers, but the symbol and the machines are Back!
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Please note: Mention of a product does not constitute a recommendation to buy.
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