Those Loveable Advertising Icons

 

QUESTION: When I was a kid, my world seemed to be filled with cute characters— tigers, giants, cows, bunnies, tire people, and doughboys. I saw them on my cereal boxes, milk cartons, soup cans, and all sorts of other products. I had mugs, colorful drinking glasses, rings, spoons----you name it. What brought about such a character-driven economy? Are any of these character items worth anything today?

ANSWER: While the character mascots you saw every day appeared mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, in fact, the first one—the Quaker Oats Quaker—dates all the way back to 1877. And although he didn’t really have anything to do with the Quakers, the cereal company created an icon that has lasted 144 years.

Ad men refer to characters such as Aunt Jemima, Elsie the Borden Cow, the Jolly Green Giant, and Tony the Tiger as advertising icons, but collectors just call them advertising character collectibles. And there are lots of them—Betty Crocker, the Energizer Bunny, the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy, to name a few.

Collectors classify advertising characters in two categories—those created by a company specifically to sell a product, such as Aunt Jemima, and those that became a character first, then were licensed to one or more companies to sell a product, such as Howdy Doody. Some advertising character collectors specialize in just one character. 

Henry Seymour, co-founder of Quaker Oats, randomly decided on the character after reading about Quakers in an encyclopedia. He thought the Quaker name represented purity, honesty, and integrity, characteristics the company wanted to portray as their brand. Early collectibles include buttons, trade cards, booklets, a china bowl in 1910, plastic-ware from F & F, tins and, of course my favorite, cookie jars. 

Next came Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima pancake mix debuted in 1889, though the inspiration for the character came from a minstrel show that occurred in 1875. Charles Rutt and Charles G. Underwood, creators of the self-rising flour, named the recipe “Aunt Jemima’s recipe” after watching a minstrel show that featured a Southern mammy named Jemima. Nancy Green, the original actress who portrayed Aunt Jemima from 1890 until her death in 1923, was a former slave from Kentucky. Besides appearing on boxes of pancake mix, the character of Aunt Jemima evolved into dolls, cookie jars, syrup bottles and other memorabilia.

Illustrator Grace Wiederseim did sketches of cute little kids in 1904 for a series of streetcar advertisements for Campbell Soup. The Campbell Soup Kids, as they came to be known, began as little kids playing games but they quickly grew up, maturing over time to begin performing more traditional adult tasks such as climbing a fireman's ladder and delivering ice. They quickly became very popular. The kids have spawned a huge business in collectibles with pins, postcards, dishes and of course dolls, as well as recipe books, kitchen decor, and table top salt and peppers shakers, toys, and even Christmas ornaments. 

Another oldie but a goodie is Mr. Peanut. Born in 1916 when 14 year-old Antonio Gentile won $5 for submitting a drawing of a peanut that resembled a person. Rumor has it that Commercial Artist, Andrew S. Wallach, enhanced the illustration with a monocle, top hat and cane to create the iconic image, though Planters has never positively identified the artist. He has appeared on almost every Planters package and advertisement since 1916 and became one of the best-known icons in advertising history. Mr. Peanut collectibles include a vintage adult Halloween costume, glass tumblers, vintage alarm clocks, and pins, as well as books, posters, jars, dolls, silverware, banks, watches, and salt/pepper sets.

When the Green Giant first appeared in 1928, he wasn’t very jolly. The Minnesota Valley Canning Company created a hunched and scowling Giant. But marketing a Giant as a mascot proved to be difficult in the beginning. Early tv appearances left children crying at the sight of this monster. So ad agency Erwin, Wasey & Co. came in and improved his posture, added a smile, and made his clothing light and leafy. By 1935, the company added the word Jolly to the Giant’s name, and by 1950, the Minnesota Valley Canning Company had changed its name to the Green Giant Company.

Elsie the Borden Cow, one of the most famous marketing characters ever created, came into being at a time when consumers often feared milk to be disease-laden after a 1907 report from the USDA declared many dairy cows carried tuberculosis and lived in unsanitary conditions. 

She went on to lead the Rose Bowl parade, raise $1.6 million for World War II bonds, collect keys to more than 600 cities, and spawned several recipe books. Elsie has been made into dolls, toys, lamps, mugs, ceramic items, cookie jars, as well as having her face adorn other items, including signs, buttons and postcards.

Originally designed by Martin Provensen, author and illustrator of children's hooks, Tony the Tiger has captured the hearts of children and adults alike since he first appeared on Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes unreal boxes in 1952. He actually started as one of four characters that included Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu. They had a very short life, but Tony has gone on to fame promoting Kellogg's Frosted Flakes (the name Sugar was taken out in a health conscious wave). Like many of the characters on the icon list, Tony is depicted in plush toys and dolls, telephone, watches, cookie jars, tins and on cereal bowls.

One of the cutest ad icons are the M&M guys and gals. M & M's were first sold to American soldiers in 1941 after Mars Sr. met Spanish soldiers eating hard sugar-encased chocolate candies during the Spanish Civil War. He came home, developed the recipe and the product was sold to American soldiers as a snack that traveled well and easily in all climates. At the time the candies were packaged in cardboard tubes. By the late forties they were a popular candy with the public and the packaging changed to brown paper bag we still know today. The M & M characters were first introduced in 1954, on TV in 1972 and are more popular than ever today. The clever and funny commercials really catch the eye and make us identify with the different guys, like feeling sorry for Orange and laughing at Red's antics. Toppers are particularly popular, as well as the candy dispensers, plush figures, pins and cookie jars. A series of special miniature toys appeared on retailer shelves for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter in the last decade.

Poppin’ Fresh (aka the Pillsbury Doughboy) was born in a kitchen in Chicago in 1965. Rudy Perz, a copywriter for advertising agency Leo Burnett, helped create an ad campaign for Pillsbury’s refrigerated dough product line. He imagined a living dough boy popping out of a Pillsbury Crescent Rolls can. To separate him from the rolls, Perz added a chef’s hat and a white scarf. He also gave him big blue eyes, and made him giggle when poked in the stomach. As you can imagine, Pillsbury Doughboy is on hundreds of collectibles, most of them kitchen related. Dolls, clothing, radios, ornaments, pictures, towels, and Christmas ornaments filled out the souvenir product line. 

And while many of the advertising characters are cute and cuddly, some are worth more than the smile on kids’ faces—especially the older items.

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