Aeroplane Jelly

Aeroplane Jelly

In the annals of Australian commercial history, there are some brands that stand out as iconically Australian, although many of these are now defunct or have been commandeered by non-Australian multi-Nationals - Arnotts biscuits (now owned by Campbell's Soup), Golden Circle (now owned by Heinz), Peter's Ice-cream (now owned by Nestle) just to name a few.

Tab Cola: Elle Macpherson

Memories

Tab Cola. For beautiful people.

In the  1980s, one TV ad which was driving the Aussie boys crazy was a beachside promo piece for Tab Cola, the diet soft drink, featuring an 18 year old red bikini clad Elle The Body Macpherson. Tab, which was created in 1963, was the Coca Cola Company's  answer to  the rival Diet Rite, at that time the only sugar-free fizzy drink on the market.

Not surprisingly, being a weight conscious drink, Tab was specifically designed to appeal to women, with it's hot pink can and female oriented Ad campaigns. The Tab ad is Coke's not too subtle way of appealing to a woman's desire to be not only fresh and healthy but sexy to men...

Elle of course, went on to become an International supermodel and business entrepreneur, flogging frilly underwear to the aspirational. Born Eleanor Gow in 1963 (coincidentally, the same year Tab was launched) in the well-heeled Upper North shore suburbs of Sydney, the lanky beauty reputedly has managed to amass a considerable  personal fortune, ranging in the tens of millions. Not just a hot body then..?

Mr Sheen

Oh Mr. Sheen, Oh Mr. Sheen...
The housewife's Little Helper, the rotund Mr Sheen, was a familiar sight on Australian television in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The product was first manufactured in the 1950s in Australia by Samuel Taylor Pty. Ltd (bought out later by British firm Reckitt and Coleman) and back in the day, when few people had heard of the ozone layer,  had the distinction of being the first aerosol product in the country.

I Have Seen a Place Where You have Never Been...

Mr. Sheen's ubiquitous public image was driven by a clever advertising campaign, that featured a short, plump little man who looked and sounded like a British public servant. He had a veneer of respectability and could get into every nook and corner where dust and grit were hiding, leaving a shiny, mirror -like surface.

Like Louie da Fly, the cartoon character was an easy identifiable figure that the consuming public could warm to and remember and paired with a catchy tune, destined to become an icon in advertising folk lore.. Fictional though he was, he was trustworthy, friendly, non-threatening and unlike Louie, clean.The Mr Sheen theme tune was not an original but based on a famous 1920s Vaudeville song, Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean, which became a huge hit, later performed in various forms by a variety of entertainers. The Ad campaign, launched in the late 50s by the Hansen Rubensohn agency, was created by Brian Henderson and Vic Nicholson and the jingle lyrics by Bob Gibson and Jimmy white.

Although he was growing tired by the 1980s, Mr. Sheen was still performing his housekeeping duties on TV during that decade, in an only slightly updated version of the earlier ad in a stagier, 'musical' form.

In 1997 Mr. Sheen was relaunched and vamped up for a new generation of domestic engineers. The cheerful, balding gentleman is the one constant of the product and manufacturers were loathe to part with him. He is, after all, a marketing legend...and what's more, he knows how to treat a housewife. If you want to catch up with him, like any PR conscious celebrity, he's on Facebook.

Classic Coke Bottle

Classic coke bottle. Source

The shapely contoured bottle patented by the Coca Cola Company in 1916 is a 20th century icon, recognized all over the world. Over the decades it has changed shape a little here and there but retained the basic contoured form, with the vertical ridges for easy gripping. In 1997 a contour can was introduced by Coca Cola but was never widely released.

Coke was first bottled back in 1900, at the initiative of three entrepreneurial attorneys who secured the US bottling rights for the syrupy brown liquid that was proving to be such a hit at the soda fountains.

The first coke bottle was a straight-sided affair that resembled a medicinal bottle but according to the company's website, the bottlers were concerned that he common shape would be too easily 'confused with imitators'. They needed something distinctively coke. Glass manufacturers were asked to submit ideas for an alternative shape and glass designer Earl R Dean from the the Root Bottling Company from Indiana and apparently inspired by the shape of a cocoa pod, came up with the radical new shape that is now so familiar. For his efforts, Dean was offered the choice of a life-time job at the Root company or a $500 bonus. Sensibly, he chose the latter.

Original design drawing for the Coke 'contour' bottle by Earl R Dean. Source

The Reptilian Brain
The trademark bottle was a huge success, partly because it was instantly recognizable as belonging to Coca Cola but why did the coke drinking public find the shape so appealing? Could it have something to do with our reptilian brain?

According to NeuroMarketers (those canny ad men who use brain science to reach deep  into the desires and wishes of the consuming public) the brain can be divided into three basic parts:

Human - the highly developed, most recent part of the brain, housing the cortex and responsible for such "human" as logic, reason, learning, rational thought and personality.

Mammalian - the 'limbic', middle part of the brain dealing with memory, emotion, moods and hormones.

Reptilian - this is most ancient part of the brain that controls basic survival and imperatives like breathing, hunger, thirst, the avoidance of danger, flight or fight and general instinctive behaviour. Also know as the R complex.

It's believed the ancient reptilian brain rules when it comes to  those quick decision making responses to advertising -overriding the 'logic and reason' part nearly every time. This is because the reptilian brain operates on a kind of auto-pilot, responding to sensory stimuli and triggering an unconscious emotional response. It's also believed to be the the part responsible for addiction and may explain help explain why some people continue to engage in dangerous drug taking, even when they know rationally, it will have negative effects.

Anyhow, back to the classic coke bottle, which has remained in production for almost a hundred years.  The softly rounded form of the glass has a sensual, organic, almost womanly look and feel to it - it can be held and caressed...fondled even, in a way a big old plastic bottle or aluminium can can't. It's sexier.

Pears Soap

Art.com Reproduction Pears soap poster

Reproduction Pear soap poster. Amazon

Pears soap is one of the oldest commercially made cleansers in the world and certainly one of the most familiar, not least because of the company's  famous old-fashioned advertisements which have been widely circulated and re-used over and over.

The story of the translucent soap can be traced back over 220 years, to Oxford Street in London , where farmer's son and trained barber, Andrew Pears, produced and sold his reddish brown see-through soap in 1789...the first of its kind. Pears was also the world's first registered brand and thus, technically, the worlds oldest lasting brand-name.

Selling Purity
Pears' commercial success in an interesting example of successful marketing. In the late 1700s, most soaps contained harsh ingredients such as arsenic and/or lead, ingredients which could themselves be damaging to the skin. Conscious of this, Andrew Pears experimented with natural ingredients and came up with a gentle, glycerin based soap. "Purity' was the selling point and the translucence of the soap helped sell the idea - if customers could see through the soap, they would be more inclined to believe there wasn't anything nasty or harmful lurking in there.

Eorographics Pears print poster

By the 1800s, Pears' Grandson Francis had joined the company and A and F Pears Ltd was formed. Andrew Pears eventually retired and unfortunately did not live to see his soap win a prize medal at the famous Great Exhibition (Crystal Palace Exhibition) of 1851.

Eventually, Francis Pears son-in-law, Thomas J Barratt, generally regarded as an early genius of advertising,was welcomed into  the company fold and it was he who turned Pears soap into one of the most successful consumer products ever to hit the British mass marketplace.

With an eye for commercial aesthetics, Barrett famously employed Pre-Raphealite artist,  Edward John Millais's 1886 painting, Bubbles, to advertise the soap -a campaign which was so successful, it was continued for several decades. Bubbles, with it's strong soap/child association, reflected an image of clean innocence and purity -everything Pears wanted to get across to the purchasing public and it was a theme that Pears would continue to promote via it's advertising campaigns over the generations.

Bubbles by Millais. For commercial purposes,  the painting was overlayed with Pears Soap lettering

Celebrity Endorsement

Lovely Lily Langtry, actress and Pears soap ambassador

Another successful ploy devised by Barratt was to hire the endorsement of popular actress, Lily Langtry, who was famous for her ivory-skinned beauty. It seems an obvious move for a marketer, yet at the time, such a thing was unheard of and indeed, Langtry was the first woman to publicly endorse a commercial product.

The connection of pears soap to children and beauty was further reinforced in the early 20th century, when Miss Pears competitions  were held every year, offering the winner a chance to appear in Pears promotional material.

Pears advertising was ubiquitous in Victorian and Edwardian newspapers, magazines and periodicals -often there were four page inserts. From 1891 to 1925, the company also produced a large Christmas annual, containing stories, advertisements and prints which could be removed and framed.

From one generation to the next, Pears soap was (and still is to some extent) as trusted and comfortably familiar as the family cat. Through careful, clever advertising and the right associations, the company had managed to create a brand loyalty that must have been the envy of every manufacturer in England and probably beyond.

Louie the Fly

Louie the Fly

Louie da fly, I'm Louie da fly

Straight from rubbish tip to you...

Spreading disease with the greatest of ease
Straight from rubbish tip to you
I'm bad and mean and mighty unclean

 Mortein's 1962  Louie the fly ad campaign was one of the most successful ever launched in Australia. Louie was a tough talking, street-wise insect, who never seriously underestimated the chemical power of a good fly spray. The animation was created by British born cartoonist Geoffrey Morgan Pike and originally voiced by Neil Williams in a campaign  put together by creative director Bryce Courtenay, who went on to become a highly successful novelist.

Afraid of no-one, 'cept the man with da can of Mortein...  
Hate that word Mortein...brrrr...jeeeeeeee

According  to legend, Courtenay scribbled out the ad concept in 1957  while riding in a taxi on his way to meet the managing director of Mortein, Bill Graham. It proved to be a terrific concept and Morgan's drawings and music/lyrics of the jingle, written by James Joseph White,  helped to firmly embed Louie the Fly in the national consciousness.So successful was the Louie campaign  it's been retrieved in a new form  more than once - most recently in 3D animation.

Aeroplane Jelly

Mr. Sheen

Tab Cola

Skipping Girl

Melbourne's iconic Skipping Girl.Image from Kingston Historical Website

Old Melbourne
Since 1936,  the Skipping Girl Vinegar sign has been an iconic and much loved landmark for Victorians. Dubbed "little Audrey", the Skipping Girl began in the imagination of Jim Minogue, who won a competition to design a logo for Skipping Girl Vinegar in 1915. Minogue's 8 year old sister Kitty, was the inspiration.

In 1936, a neon sign was created by the Electric Sign Company- believed by some to be Melbourne's first - although according to Neville Michie, whose father, AI Michie, was General Manager at Nycander's from 1928 to 1954, the Skipping Girl was not the first animated sign, as "Kraft had a sign with a "K" composed of three letters K, of three sizes, that were illuminated in turn. "As kids we knew it as Panting K".

Interestingly, Neville Michie also recalls that the Skipping Girl had a Swedish cultural connection. As he explained to me:

My Father, A.I.Michie,  worked at Nycanders from 1928 to 1954 when he was manager. He explained the Skipping Girl was Nycander's idea. Nycander was a Swede, in Sweden the cruel, cold winters keep children indoors for months , until in Spring there is a day that is warm enough for the children to go out and play. The first "Skipping Girl" of the year is a sign that Winter is over and Spring has arrived. So just as the English wait for the first cuckoo, the Swedes wait for the first  skipping girl.

At a time when brands were promoted by logos, like Aeroplane Jelly and Submarine Candles, Nycander chose the "Skipping Girl" from his Swedish heritage as a trading logo. Notice that the dress that she wears is a Swedish traditional design.

Dismantled
Skipping Girl was placed atop of the Nycander  Co’s Skipping Girl Vinegar factory, opposite the end of Burnley Street in Abbortsford. However in 1968, at a time when, sadly,  many of Melbourne's historic buildings were being mercilessly ripped apart to make way for high rise developments, the factory faced demolishment and the Skipping Girl was dismantled by Whelan the Wrecker and sold to an Auto yard for £100. (Comedian Barry Humphries later tracked down the decayed original skipping girl and wrote a song, an An Ode to the Skipping Girl.)

Ours...

By that time Skipping Girl had become a part of Melbourne's collective psyche and her abscence caused a public furore. Outrage was so strong that the factory owner had a replica made, which was placed atop of the Crusader Electroplating factory in 1970, 100 metres away from the old Vinegar Factory. That wasn't the end of the story though, as in the 1980's, there was more controversy when the Crusader factory was turned into trendy apartments.

The Skipping Girl survived the transisition and remained on top ...I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a building below the Skipping Girl?

By the 2000s she was looking a little distressed and once again in danger of annihilation. Fortunately the Heritage Trust launched an appeal and funds were raised to restore the sign. Her neon function had been turned off for several years and it's only since 2009 that she's been lighting up the Melbourne sky again at night and powered by 100% Green Power energy no less.

Old Nycanders factory, - original home of the Skipping Girl. Many thanks to the Michie family for the use of these photos.

AI Michie, industrial chemist at and Nycanders and later, General Manager from 1928 to 1954

To many Melbournians, the city would not be the same without their Skipping Girl and she has proved to be an attraction for artists, photographers and even inspired the name of  a Melbourne acoustic band,  Skipping Girl Vinegar. There is something strangely moving about that old image of a carefree girl skipping gaily amid the aggresive architecture, chaos and stress of a modern city.

Isn't it Iconic?

Solar switch
As of 2012, the Skipping Girl is no longer powered by electricity but rather twenty-seven solar panels, keeping her in step with an environmentally conscious world.

Speaking of old Melbourne. Remember Foy and Gibsons..?