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"We wanted a pretty girl who was a good saleslady as well," says iJablons. The decision to use a womlan in the commercials was made for three basic reasons:
1) Demonstration by a male doesn't mean that much in toiletries. Sex-appeal is more important.
2) Women often purchase men's toiletries for their husbands.
3) One of the Burma products — the deodorant — will be promoted is a family item.
1 The fact that commercials for Burma-Vita products, as well as those for the American Safety Razor division, are on CBS network programs, is not surprising. All the Philip Morris network tv buys are m CBS. Burma-Vita has a scatter:d echedule throughout the Philip Morris line-up, which includes Slattery's People, The Red Skelton Show, Jackie Gleason, CBS News bnd NFL Football on which Burna-Vita commercials are concen;rated.
No doubt some of the great exoectations for Burma-Vita products ire hinged on participation in NFL 'ootball telecasts. The series suc;essfully launched stainless steel
blades for Personna, Burma's companion product. Introduced during NFL Football coverage last year, Personna blades came from nowhere to capture a 30 percent share-ofmarket.
With the entrance of BurmaShave (and new related products) into the tv arena this year, a traditional and well-known form of advertising was scrapped — the Burma Shave road signs. Burma-Vita announced that the signs will be taken down " because superhighways carry motorists too fast over hill and dale to read the jingles."
Burma-Shave signs have been on U.S. roadsides for almost four decades. It was Allan Odell, son of the founder of Burma-Vita, who thought of the idea.
"I asked my dad for $200 to give it a try and he said we were going busted anyway, I might as well finish the job," Allan recalls.
But the signs worked; they attracted attention — and sales. Signs were soon erected throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. By the end of the year sales went from just about zero to $68,000. From then on signs appeared all over the
country, increasing sales "by the mile."
The clever Burma-Shave "serials" are familiar to all who ride the highways. Among them
/ Proposed
To Ida
Ida Refused
Ida Won My Ida
If Ida Used
Burma-Shave and,
Broken Romance
Stated Fully
She Went Wild
When He
Went Woolly
Burma-Shave
But progess demands that tradition and amusement give way to efficiency and sales power. Thus, it was inevitable that the advertising of BurmaVita — the last of the four independent shaving cream companies to sell out to a big corporation— would change. There are many Americans who have cars, but there are a great many more who have tv sets. Once more, roads are no longer for browsing, they lare for getting places — perhaps even home to watch television. ♦
J ,
October 26, 1964
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