Burma-Shave

Burma-Shave was a United States brand of brushless shaving cream that was sold from 1925 to 1966. The product was notable for its innovative advertising campaign, which relied on a series of roadside signs. Typically, six signs were erected, with each of the first five containing a line of verse, and the sixth displaying the brand name.

Contents

1 History 2 Roadside billboards 3 Examples 4 Special promotional messages 5 External links

History

Burma-Shave was the second brushless shaving cream to be manufactured and the first one to become a success. The product was sold by Clinton Odell and his sons Leonard and Allan, who formed the Burma-Vita Company, named for a liniment that was the company's first product. The Odells were not making money on Burma-Vita, and wanted to sell a product that people would use daily. A wholesale drug company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the company was located, told Clinton Odell about Lloyd's Euxesis, a British product that was the first brushless shaving cream made, but which was of poor quality. Clinton Odell hired a chemist named Carl Noren to produce a quality shaving cream. After 143 attempts, Burma-Shave was created.

To market Burma-Shave, Allan Odell devised the concept of sequential signboards to sell the product. Allan Odell recalled one time when he noticed signs saying Gas, Oil, Restrooms, and finally a sign pointing to a roadside gas station. The signs compelled people to read each one in the series, and would hold the driver's attention much longer than a conventional billboard. In the fall of 1925, the first sets of Burma-Shave signs were erected on two highways leading out of Minneapolis. Sales rose dramatically in the area, and the signs soon appeared nationwide. Within a decade, Burma-Shave was the second most popular brand of shaving cream in the United States.

Burma-Shave sales rose to about 6 million in 1947. Sales stagnated for seven years, and then gradually started to fall. Numerous reasons exist, including urban growth (Burma-Shave signs were usually posted on rural highways) and higher speed limits that caused the signs to be ignored. In 1963, the Burma-Vita Company was sold to Phillip Morris. Shortly after the sale, the Burma-Shave signs were discontinued and soon removed from highways. In 1964, a set of signs ( Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin-use / Burma-Shave) was donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

Philip Morris sold the Burma-Shave brand name to American Safety Razor Company in 1968, but the name remained dormant until 1997, when it was reintroduced for a line of shaving cream, razors, and accessories. Although the original Burma-Shave was a brushless shaving cream, the name currently (2005) is used to market a soap and shaving brush set.

Roadside billboards

Burma-Shave sign series appeared from 1925 to 1963 in all of the lower 48 states except for New Mexico, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Four or five consecutive billboards would line highways, so they could be read sequentially by motorists driving by.

This use of the billboard was a highly successful advertising gimmick, drawing attention and passer-by who were curious to discover the punchline.

The first set of slogans were written by the Odells. Before long, Burma-Shave started an annual contest for people to submit slogans, with winners receiving a $100 prize. Some contests received over 50,000 entries.

Examples

• A peach / looks good / with lots of fuzz / but man's no peach / and never wuz / Burma-Shave
• Does your husband / misbehave / grunt and grumble / rant and rave? / shoot the brute some / Burma-Shave
• Don't take a curve / at 60 per / we hate to lose / a customer / Burma-Shave
• Every shaver / now can snore / six more minutes / than before / by using / Burma-Shave
• He played / a sax / had no B.O. / but his whiskers scratched / so she let him go / Burma-Shave
• Henry the Eighth / sure had trouble / short-term wives / long-term stubble / Burma-Shave
• Grandpa's beard / was stiff and coarse / and that's what / caused his / fifth divorce / Burma-Shave
• Missin' / kissin'? / Perhaps your thrush / can't get through / the underbrush — try / Burma-Shave
• A chin / where barbed wire / bristles stand / is bound to be / a no ma'ams land / Burma-Shave
• Dinah doesn't / treat him right / but if he'd / shave / dyna-mite! / Burma-Shave
• To change that / shaving job / to joy / you gotta use / the real McCoy / Burma-Shave
• Don't lose / your head / to gain a minute / you need your head / your brains are in it / Burma-Shave
• The bearded Devil / is forced / to dwell / in the only place / where they don't sell / Burma-Shave
• In Cupid's little / bag of trix / here's the one / that clix / with chix / Burma-Shave
• A shave / that's real / no cuts to heal / a soothing / velvet after-feel / Burma-Shave
• Riot at / drug store / calling all cars / 100 customers / 99 jars / Burma-Shave
• The wolf / is shaved / so neat and trim / Red Riding Hood / is chasing him / Burma-Shave
• This cooling shave / will never fail / to stamp / its user / first-class male / Burma-Shave
• The monkey took / one look at Jim / and threw the peanuts / back at him / he needed / Burma-Shave
• Use our cream / and we betcha /girls won't wait / they'll come / and getcha / Burma-Shave
• A man / a miss / a kiss, a curve / he kissed the miss / and missed the curve / Burma-Shave
• He undertook / to overtake / a car around the bend / from now on the undertaker / is his only friend / Burma-Shave
• If you / don't know / whose signs / these are / You can't have / driven very far (no final "Burma-Shave" sign)

Special promotional messages

• Free offer! Free offer! / Rip a fender / off your car / mail it in for / a half-pound jar / Burma-Shave

A large number of fenders (real ones scavenged from junkyards, as well as from models) were received by the company, which made good on its promise.

• Free — free / a trip to Mars / for 900 / empty jars / Burma-Shave

Arliss "Frenchy" French, the manager of a supermarket in Appleton, Wisconsin, took the company up on its offer, creating an elaborate promotion at his store. Ads saying "Send Frenchy to Mars" appeared in the local newspaper, and men dressed as aliens stood on the roof and fired toy rocket gliders over the parking lot. French emptied Burma-Shave jars sold at his store into ice cream cartons and kept the jars. After accumulating 900 jars, French sent the jars to Burma-Shave headquarters via armored car. After negotiation of terms by means of verse, the company agreed to send him on vacation to Moers (near Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany).

External links

• the Burma-Shave jingles (http://burma-shave.org/jingles)
• William M. Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design on-line exhibit (http://www.eisnermuseum.org/_burma_shave/)
• Contemporary Burma-Shave products (http://www.asrco.com/PageView.aspx?NavKey=88&MarketID=1&RegionID=1)
• Burma Shave Story (http://www.FreeEnterpriseLand.com/BURMASHAVE.html) from FreeEnterpriseLand.com