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Unless You're
65 Or More
You've Probably
Never Heard of
Burma-Shave
From Days of Yore |
Before
cell phones, laptops, satellite radio or back-seat video screens,
the basic ways to pass the time while traveling by car were talking
with your fellow passengers, reading something printed on paper or
simply relaxing and enjoying the scenery.
In Texas and most other states, from the mid-1920s to the early 1960s,
part of watching the countryside pass by involved reading and laughing
at the clever advertising signs placed along highways by Burma-Vita,
the Minneapolis company that manufactured a brush-less shaving cream
called Burma-Shave. (For those who have forgotten or perhaps never
heard of it, shaving is a daily procedure in which a male-born person
voluntarily removes his facial hair with a sharp blade after applying
some form of lubricant, generally referred to as shaving cream.)
The once ubiquitous brand name, which got off to a slow start until
the owners thought of putting up pithy, punny signs to give their
product legs, came from the company's claim that their product was
made with ingredients from the Malay Peninsula and Burma.
Unlike large billboards or smaller advertising signs, Burma-Shave
signs came in a sequential set of six, each spaced far enough apart
for motorists to easily digest the witty words line by line. (The
sixth board was always just the product name.) The signs, red boards
with white letters often simply nailed to fence posts, adhered to
one of the fundamental tenets of good advertising: Funny stuff tends
to get remembered.
Clearly, Burma-Shave's marketing department understood that truism
very well. They even admitted as much with this sign set: |
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If Our Road
Signs
Catch Your Eye
Smile
But Don't Forget
To Buy
Burma-Shave
|
Burma Shave
Signs on Route 66
Wikimedia Commons |
Before
the company ended its sign campaign in 1963, over the years it had
produced some 700 different sets of text. Starting in 1926, each year
brought new signs with new verbiage, but older signs tended to stay
up. That made for roughly 40,000 signs across the nation, excluding
New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, which company officials did not think
had enough vehicular traffic to justify signage. (Because of high
rental costs and other factors, Massachusetts also did not have the
funny signs.) In Texas, however, Burma-Shave signs could be found
along all the main pre-Interstate highways, as common as bluebonnets
in early spring.
Of course, a good brand name does not afford immunity from the law.
A company representative once had his own kind of close shave when
he found himself facing two Texas Rangers with guns drawn. Turned
out, the traveling salesman-sign hanger had tossed several boxes of
defective Burma-Shave product off a bridge. Someone seeing that happen
jumped to the sinister conclusion that a body was being disposed of.
Once the Burma-Shave rep succeeded in convincing the state lawmen
that he was not a killer on the run, they let him go with a warning.
While not always politically correct by today's standards, the roadside
signs brought smiles in the day. Not only were most of them funny,
in addition to touting their product, they offered safety messages
to motorists.
Some of the safety related slogans from the 1960s: |
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Drowsy?
Just Remember, Pard
That Marble Slab
Is Doggone
Hard
Angels
Who Guard You
When You Drive
Usually
Retire At 65
If Daisies
Are Your
Favorite Flower
Keep Pushin' Up Those
Miles-Per-Hour
|
A perennial theme
was that shaving, especially with Burma-Shave, made a gentleman more
attractive to the ladies.
A favorite along Texas highways was: |
Ben
Met Anna
Neglected Beard
Ben-Anna Split
Burma-Shave |
| For those with
a passing knowledge of British history, the company offered this sign: |
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Henry the Eighth
Sure Had
Trouble
Short Term Wives
Long Term Stubble
|
| From the company's
final year: |
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In Cupid's Little
Bag of Trix
Here's the One
That Clix
With Chix
|
The
sign campaign worked. At the company's peak, Burma-Shave ranked second
in U.S. shaving cream sales. But the advent of electric razors in
the 1950s began to dull Burma-Shave's market edge. In 1963, the company
was acquired by Philip Morris. The new owners of the brand apparently
did not have much of a sense of humor and the Burma-Shave sign campaign
ended. Besides, television ads could reach a lot more people than
road signs.
Philip Morris did not send teams across the nation to pull down every
old Burma-Shave sign. Souvenir hunters and antique dealers took care
of that, though some of the sign sets survived for years after their
maker had faded into corporate history.
As early as 1942, the company seems to have understood the impact
it had already had on American culture when it distributed this sign
set: |
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If You
Don't Know
Whose Signs
These Are
You Can't Have
Driven Very Far
Burma-Shave
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