Burma-Shave is an American brand of unbrushless shaving cream, famous for its advertising gimmick posting funny rhymes of poems on the signs of successive small side roads.
Video Burma-Shave
History
Burma-Shave was introduced in 1925 by the Burma-Vita company in Minneapolis owned by Clinton Odell. The company's original product is a liniment made from the ingredients depicted from the "Malay Peninsula and Burma" (hence its name). Sales are very rare, and companies are trying to expand sales by introducing products with wider appeal.
The result is a brand of Burma-Shave shaving cream without brush and a supporting advertising program. Sales increase. At its peak, Burma-Shave is the second best-selling shaving cream in the United States. Sales declined in the 1950s, and in 1963 the company was sold to Philip Morris. The signs were removed at that time. The brand is down in visibility and eventually belongs to the American Safety Razor Company.
In 1997, the American Safety Razor Company reintroduced the Burma-Shave brand with shaving soap and nostalgic toothbrushes, although the original Burma-Shave was a brushless cream, and Burmese-Shave raids were often ridiculed " grandfather, brush. "
Maps Burma-Shave
Roadside billboard
The Burma-Shave series of marks first appeared on US Highway 65 near Lakeville, Minnesota, in 1926, and remained a major advertising component until 1963 in most of the neighboring United States. The first series read: Cheer up, face - the war is over! Burma-Shave . Exceptions are New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada (considered to have inadequate road traffic), and Massachusetts (eliminated due to high lease of state land and roadside foliage). Typically, six consecutive small marks will be installed along the highway, located to be read in sequence by passing motorists. The last sign is almost always the product name. The initial signs are produced in two color combinations: red-white and orange-and-black, though the latter has been removed after a few years. A set of gray-blue special marks was developed for South Dakota, which limits the red color on the roadside signs to the official warning notices.
The use of this series of small signs, each of which is part of a commercial message, was a successful approach to highway advertising during the early years of a road trip, attracting the attention of passers-by who wanted to learn the funny thing. When the Interstate system expanded in the late 1950s and the speed of vehicles increased, it became more difficult to attract the attention of motorists with small signs. When the company was acquired by Philip Morris, the signs were discontinued on advice advice.
Some signs show a security message about speeding up instead of ads.
An example of a Burma-Shave advertisement is at The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Re-creation Burma-Shave signs also appeared on Arizona State Highway 66, part of the original US Route 66, between Ash Fork, Arizona, and Kingman, Arizona, (though they were not installed there by Burmese-Shave during the original campaign) and on Old US Highway 30 near Ogden, Iowa. Another example is shown at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, Interstate 44 in the Missouri break area between Rolla and Springfield (which features the old Route 66 picnic structure), the Forney Transport Museum in Denver, Colorado and the Virginia Transport Museum in Roanoke, Virginia.
Example
A full list of 600 or more known set of marks is listed in Sunday Drives and in the last section of Road Side Verses . The contents of the earliest signs are lost, but it is believed that the first signs recorded, for 1927 and soon afterwards, close to the original. The first is boring advertising. Generally the signs are printed with all capital letters. The styles shown below for legibility:
- Modern shaving/No brush/No foam/No rub-in/Big 35 cube - Drugstore/Burma-Shave store
In early 1928, the authors displayed a disgusting sense of humor:
- Take "H" from shave/Make it save/Save skin/Save time and money/No brush - no foam/Burma-Shave
In 1929, prosaic advertising began to be replaced by actual verses on four marks, with the fifth mark just a filler for the sixth:
- Every shaver/Now can snore/Six more minutes/than before/By using/Burma-Shave
- Your Shaving Brush/Have a Day/So why not/Shave the modern way/With/Burma-Shave
Previously there were only two to four sets of marks per year. 1930 saw huge growth in the company, and 19 sets of marks were produced. The authors recycle previous jokes. They continue to make fun of the "old-fashioned" shaving style. And they started appealing to wives as well:
- Enter the face/War is over/"H" out/From shave/Finally/Burma-Shave
- Shaving brush/You will soon see 'em/On shelf/In some/Museum/Burma-Shave
- Is your husband/Misbehave/Grunt and grumble/Speak and rave/Shoot rough/Burma-Shave people
In 1931, the authors began to express the "shock factor" side of their creativity, which will increase over time:
- No problem/How do you slice it/It's still your face/Be humane/Use/Burma-Shave
In 1932, the company recognized the popularity of signs with a self-reference gimmick:
- Free/Illustrations/books Jingle/In each/Packages/Burma-Shave
- Shave/It's real/No injuries to heal/A soothing/Velvet after-feel/Burma-Shave
In 1935, the emergence of the first known safety message emerged, combined with sales pitch sales:
- Train approaching/Whistle squealing/Stopping/Avoiding a broken feeling/Burma-Shave
- Save well/Right/From speeding car/Get your close shipment/From a half-pound/Burma-Shave bottle
Security messages began to increase in 1939, as these examples show. (The first of four is a parody of "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.)
- Almost no driver/Is now alive/Passed/In the hill/In 75/Burma-Shave
- Past/Schoolhouses/Take it slow/Let the little one/Shavers grow/Burma-Shave
- If you do not like/Fine big traffic/Slow/Until You/Can read these signs/Burma-Shave
- Do not take/curve/60 per./We hate loss/customer/Burma-Shave
In 1939 and subsequent years, the collapse of the signs was overshadowed, as busy roads approaching the big cities displaying brief versions of slogans on one, two, or three signs are not recorded. The speeches include a play on the slogan of Maxwell House Coffee, standard wordplay, and other references to "H" jokes:
- Good for last sentence
- Covers many chins
- Take "H" from shaving
The years of warfare found companies recycling many of their old signs, with the new ones mostly focused on World War II propaganda:
- Let's make Hitler/Dan Hirohito/Feel as bad/as Old Benito/Buy War Bonds/Burma-Shave
- Slap/The Jap/With/Iron/Scrap/Burma-Shave
1963 is the last year for signs, most of which repeat, including the last slogan, which first appeared in 1953:
- Our luck/Is your face/Shaven/This is the best/Ad space/Burma-Shave
Perhaps the ultimate in self-reference signs, leaving the product name. This one also graced the cover of the book:
- If you/Do not know/Whose/This is/you can not/Are pushed very far
Custom promotional messages
- Free offer! Offer free!/Rip fender from your car/ship to/for a half kilo/Burma-Shave bottle
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- A large number of fenders are accepted by the company, which fulfills its promise.
- Free - free/trip to Mars/for 900/empty bottle/Burma-Shave
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- One respondent, Arlyss French, who owns the Red Owl grocery store, sent out 900 empty jars; the company initially replied: "If travel to Mars/you get/remember, friend/no way back." Then Burma-Shave, on the recommendation of the Red Owl publicity team, pulled a one-way offer and sent Mr. and Mrs. French on holiday to the town of Moers (often spoken "Mars" by strangers) near Duisburg, North Rhine -Westphalia, Germany.
In popular culture
A number of movies and television shows made between the 1920s and 1950s have used Burma-Shave roadside billboards to help set the scene. Examples include Bonnie and Clyde, The Flow River , The World's Fastest Indian , Stand By Me , Tom and Jerry, and the pilot episode ("Genesis") from Quantum Leap . The old series of Hee Haw borrows styles for the bumper program, transitions from one segment of the show to the next or to the ad.
The last episode of the popular TV series M1 A * S * H ​​â € <â € showcases a series of road signs in Korea "Hawk is gone, now he's here Dance until dawn, Burmese-Shave "in the Burma-Shave style of advertising on US streets in the 1950s.
The song Roger Miller titled "Burma Shave" (his B side on his 1961 singles "Fair Swiss Maiden") made the singer mused that he "saw millions of rows of them little red poetic signs on and up the line", while reading the rhymes in the advertising way. The Tom Waits song "Burma-Shave" (from its 1977 album Overseas ) uses signs as an allegory for unknown purposes. ("I guess I'm headed that-a-way, As long as it's paved, I think you'll say I'm on my way to Burma-Shave") Chuck Suchy song "Burma Shave Boogie" (from his 2008 album Unraveling Heart ) combines some of Burma's shaved rhymes into the lyrics.
The pedestrian line between Times Square station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the New York City subway system contains public artwork inspired by Burma-Shave ads; Norman B. Colp's The Comuter Loom, or A Close Shave consists of a series of signs attached to the hall roof, displaying the following text:
- Overslept,/Extremely tired.//If it's too late,/Fired./Why the bother?/Why the pain?/Come back/Do it again.
Several highway departments in the United States use signs in the same style to provide travel safety advice to motorists.
Some writers of funny doggers and poems (like David Burge), often use "Burma Shave" in the last line of their poetry to show their less serious nature.
The word "Burmashaving" is used in Canada to describe politicians holding signs and waving to street-side traffic, a common sight during election campaigns. One of the first to use the phrase was Conservative Nova Scotia's conservative prime minister John Buchanan, who would stand at the end of a long line of party signs and wave to morning traffic.
See also
- List of inactive consumer brands
References
External links
- The Burma-Shave rhymes
- More rhymes Burma-Shave
- Burma Shave the signs
- Hoel, Lars (January 21, 2002). "Burma Shave Signs". NPR . Retrieved August 23 2009 .
- McCain, Dennis (November 6, 2002). "He saved the jar and went to Mars". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . Archived from the original on March 11, 2007 . Retrieved August 23 2009 .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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