There are a lot of popular and best loved advertising icons of the 20th century that has marked their names to consumers like Tony, Betty and Ronald etc..others may not beloved but has a high impact on the advertising world.
These top 10 ad icons of the 20th century that are being recognized of their images that has a marked into most consumers’ mind through its possessed criteria effectiveness, longevity, recognizability and cultural impact.
1. The Marlboro Man
Product:Marlboro cigarettes Date Introduced:1955 Creator:Leo Burnett Co.
- 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.
2. Ronald MCDonald
Product: McDonald’s restaurants
Date Introduced: 1963 Creator: McDonald’s franchisee Oscar Goldstein and his local ad agency
- McDonald’s Corp. advertising executive Roy Bergold can testify to the reach and recognition of Ronald McDonald. The clown’s astounding powers have certainly worked their magic for McDonald’s since he was introduced in 1963. The spokes figure helped make McDonald’s the most dominant fast-food chain on the planet. He also exemplifies one of the most important qualities of an effective commercial character: He doesn’t sell for McDonald’s, he is McDonald’s.
3. The Green Giant
Product:Green Giant Vegetables Date Introduced:1928 Creator:Minnesota Valley Canning Corp.
- 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
Date Introduced: 1921 Creator: Washburn Crosby Co., a forerunner of General Mills
- 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
Date Introduced:October 1989 Creator:Chiat/Day
- 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
Date Introduced:1965 Creator:Leo Burnett Co
- 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.
7. Aunt Jemima
Product:Aunt Jemima pancake mixes and syrup
Date Introduced:1893 Creator:Chris Rutt/Davis Milling Co.
- Aunt Jemima trademark is one of them. Few commercial icons deserve to be called “cultural touchstones” of significant political and social change. This image of the smiling black woman first appeared on thousands of boxes of pancake mix in the early 1890s, throughout the 20th century, Aunt Jemima’s trademark mirrored America’s changing perceptions of African-American women. The idea was first conceived by newspaperman and entrepreneur Chris Rutt, according to the Afro-American Almanac.
8. The Michelin Man
Product: Michelin tires
Date Introduced:1898 Creator:Idea conceived by Edouard Michelin; artist’s rendition created by O’Galop; DDB Needham Worldwide handled later executions
- 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.
9. Tony The Tiger
Product:Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes (later Frosted Flakes)
Date Introduced:1951 Creator:Leo Burnett Co.
- 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.
10. Elsie
Product:Borden dairy products
Date Introduced:1939 (first general magazine ad) Creator:Stuart Peabody, Borden’s director of advertising
- 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.
Source: Adage.com
