From frozen vegetables to packaged cake mix, from fast food to automobile tires, these carefully drawn characters are the personifications of businesses that began small but grew to become dominant brands in their fields -- thanks in large part to their famous icons.
| 1. THE MARLBORO MAN PRODUCT: Marlboro cigarettes |  |
The most powerful -- and in some quarters, most hated -- brand image of the century, the Marlboro Man stands worldwide as the ultimate American cowboy and masculine trademark, helping establish Marlboro as the best-selling cigarette in the world. Today, even a mention of the Marlboro Man as an effective ad icon brings protests from healthcare workers who see first-hand the devastation wrought by decades of cigarette smoking. More than any other issue, the ethics of tobacco advertising -- both morally and legally -- have divided the advertising industry.
| 2. RONALD MCDONALD PRODUCT: McDonald's restaurants |  |
McDonald's Corp. advertising executive Roy Bergold can testify to the reach and recognition of Ronald McDonald. But even he couldn't believe what he witnessed one day in Milwaukee. "Ronald was visiting sick children and he came upon a youngster in a coma," recalls Mr. Bergold. "I watched as the child's eyes began to flicker as Ronald stood by his side. The boy actually regained consciousness during his visit. There's no way to explain how it happened or why, but it was nothing short of amazing."
| 3. THE GREEN GIANT PRODUCT: Green Giant vegetables |  |
The Green Giant's national ad debut in 1928 was disappointing. Minnesota Valley Canning Co. developed the Giant as a product trademark, but in his earliest days he was stooped and scowling, wore a scruffy bearskin and looked more like the Incredible Hulk than the grand old gardener he is today.
| 4. BETTY CROCKER PRODUCT: Food products including cake mixes, frostings, microwave popcorn and biscuit mixes |  |
Long before Martha Stewart, there was Betty Crocker. Betty was created in 1921 after a promotion for Gold Medal flour flooded Washburn Crosby Co. with questions about baking. To answer customers in a more personal manner, the company created a fictitious kitchen expert, pulling the name "Crocker" from a recently retired director of the company and adding the first name "Betty" because it sounded friendly.
| 5. THE ENERGIZER BUNNY PRODUCT: Eveready Energizer batteries |  |
Say what you will about his long ears and drumming hands, the Energizer Bunny is one icon who's got legs. Marketing experts call it the "ultimate product demo" because it does such an effective job of showcasing the product's unique selling proposition -- long-lived batteries -- in an inventive, fresh way.
"The Bunny has become the ultimate symbol of longevity, perseverance and determination," says Mark Larsen, communications category manager for Energizer. During the past decade, everyone from politicians to sport stars used the Energizer Bunny to describe their staying power.
| 6.THE PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY PRODUCT: Assorted Pillsbury foods, including refrigerated dough, bakery mixes and rolls |  |
Burnett creative director Rudy Perz was sitting at his kitchen table in the mid-1960s when he dreamed up the idea of a plump, dough figure that would pop out of a tube of refrigerated rolls. Since then, Pillsbury has used Poppin' Fresh in more than 600 commercials for more than 50 of its products. Although Perz had originally conceived His Doughness as an animated character, he changed his mind after seeing a stop-action tilting technique used in the opening credits for "The Dinah Shore Show."
| 7. AUNT JEMIMA PRODUCT: Aunt Jemima pancake mixes and syrup |  |
Few commercial icons deserve to be called "cultural touchstones" of significant political and social change. But the Aunt Jemima trademark is one of them.
The image of the smiling black woman first appeared on thousands of boxes of pancake mix in the early 1890s, but throughout the 20th century, Aunt Jemima's trademark mirrored America's changing perceptions of African-American women. The idea of Aunt Jemima was first conceived by newspaperman and entrepreneur Chris Rutt, according to the Afro-American Almanac. Mr. Rutt and his partner, Charles Underwood, had developed and packaged a ready-mixed, self-rising pancake flour but they had not settled on a name or brand positioning.
| 8. THE MICHELIN MAN PRODUCT: Michelin tires |  |
Andre Michelin commissioned the creation of this jolly, rotund figure after his brother, Edouard, observed that a display of stacked tires resembled a human form. The artist's sketches of a bloated man made of tires was exactly what the brothers had in mind.
One in particular, picturing the character lifting a beer glass and shouting, "Nunc est bibendum! (Now is the time to drink!)" seemed to embody Michelin's slogan at the time, "Michelin tires swallow up all obstacles."
| 9. TONY THE TIGER PRODUCT: Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes (later Frosted Flakes) |  |
Only one famous feline (sorry, Morris) can rightfully claim he's the cat's meow of commercials: Tony the Tiger. Adland's premier promotional pussycat was born in 1951, when Burnett was hired to create a campaign for Kellogg's new cereal, Sugar Frosted Flakes. Tony was originally one of four animated critters created to sell the cereal, but he quickly edged out Katy the Kangaroo, Newt the Gnu and Elmo the Elephant to become the sole star of the cereal maker's ad efforts.
| ELSIE PRODUCT: Borden dairy products |  |
Elsie started out as one of four cows (Mrs. Blossom, Bessie and Clara were her sidekicks) that appeared in a 1936 cartoon series featured in medical journals -- just four friendly bovines chatting together in a pasture. The ads were a big hit and doctors ordered reprints for their offices. One day a radio commercial writer penned a letter supposedly written by Elsie and directed it to commentator Rush Hughes, who read it on the air. The gimmick proved popular and additional letters were read in subsequent broadcasts. By 1939, Elsie was being featured in her own magazine ads and her campaign was voted the best of the year by the Jury of the 1939 Annual Advertising Awards. With the World's Fair approaching, Borden decided to feature a live Elsie in its exhibit, so company executives looked at 150 cows before settling on a 7-year-old Jersey named "You'll Do Lobelia."
