DON’T WAIT FOR TECHNOLOGY

 

 

When I was at college in New York, studying advertising, Americans always said the same thing.

“Ah, the really great advertising was those Burma Shave posters.”

Then they’d chuckle as they fondly remembered them.

It turned out the Burma Shave posters had been done decades before but Americans still remembered them as their favourite advertising.

Burma Shave was one of the first brushless shaving creams.

They ran posters across rural America where Americans drove for hundreds of miles on long, straight highways with nothing to look at.

Except every so often six posters would crop up, with a 100 foot gap between each one, timed to coincide with the speed the cars were going at.

Travelling at 35mph the signs would be 3 seconds apart.

Each poster would have one line of a very simple rhyme on it.

First they introduced the concept of shaving without a shaving brush:

1^st poster: SHAVING BRUSHES

2^nd poster: YOU’LL SOON SEE ‘EM

3^rd poster: ON THE SHELF

4^th poster: IN SOME

5^th poster: MUSEUM

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

They’d expand on the time-saving advantages of brushless shaving.

1^st poster: EVERY SHAVER

2^nd poster: NOW CAN SNORE

3^rd poster: SIX MORE MINUTES

4^th poster: THAN BEFORE

5^th poster: BY USING

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

Then they’d have fun with the benefits of a closer shave:

1^st poster: IF YOU HAVE

2^nd poster: A DOUBLE CHIN

3^rd poster: YOU’VE TWO

4^th poster: GOOD REASONS

5^th poster: TO BEGIN

6^th poster: USING BURMA SHAVE

Everyone knew the last poster was always the Burma Shave logo.

So people tried to guess the next rhyme as they drove along.

1^st poster: HENRY THE EIGHTH

2^nd poster: SURE HAD

3^rd poster: TROUBLE

4^th poster: SHORT TERM WIVES

5^th poster: LONG TERM STUBBLE

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

The historical theme was of course popular:

1^st poster: SAID JULIET

2^nd poster: TO ROMEO

3^rd poster: IF YOU

4^th poster: WON’T SHAVE

5^th poster: GO HOMEO

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

Obviously so were allusions to sexual success:

1^st poster: DINAH DOESN’T

2^nd poster: TREAT HIM RIGHT

3^rd poster: BUT IF HE’D

4^th poster: SHAVE

5^th poster: THEN DYNA-MITE

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

The ads became so well known, they didn’t even need to mention shaving specifically:

1^st poster: THE MONKEY TOOK

2^nd poster: ONE LOOK AT JIM

3^rd poster: AND THREW THE PEANUTS

4^th poster: BACK AT HIM

5^th poster: HE NEEDED

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

And a decent shave became no less than any wife would demand from her husband:

1^st poster: MAN PASSES

2^nd poster: DOG HOUSE

3^rd poster: DOG SEES CHIN

4^th poster: DOG GETS OUT

5^th poster: MAN GETS IN

6^th poster: BURMA SHAVE

Over the decade or so that they ran, there were 7,000 different rhymes.

Nowadays we think any form of technological innovation in media is daring and original.

But eighty years ago people didn’t just wait around for technological innovation, they used their brains to innovate existing media.

Simple, fun, catchy, memorable.

Of course you won’t see any of those ads in an awards annual.

But I don’t think there’s many current award winners that ordinary people will still be talking about in fifty years time.