Reddy Kilowatt Ohio Edison Ads – January 1960

By 1970, our old pal Reddy Kilowatt wasn’t showing up in too many Ohio Edison ads in the Lorain Journal. His heyday of the 1950s and 60s – in which he appeared in newspaper ads seemingly almost every day – was definitely over. It comes as no shock to you (heh-heh) that customers no longer needed to be encouraged to use more electricity.

But as readers of this blog know, I like to post vintage ads with the famous electric sprite. So I’ll merely go back another ten years to the beginning of the 1960s.

In January 1960, Reddy was still peddling a lot of electric products. In the ad shown below, it’s an ‘electric bed covering.’

It seems relatively inexpensive at $19.95, but if you use one of those online inflation calculators, the price for the same item in today’s dollars (or clams if you prefer) would cost $111.85!

No wonder Reddy had a payment plan with $5 down. (Today, five bucks is just about what you pay for one of those Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwiches that I mentioned yesterday).

Reddy made another appearance in the Journal less than a week later on January 26, 1960. An editorial had appeared in the paper a month earlier lauding a national Ohio Edison ad for including the Lorain-Elyria area as part of the “center of industrial America.” It was pointed out that Cleveland – which was not part of the area served by Ohio Edison – was not mentioned in the ad, and thus did not overshadow the two Lorain County cities.

Consequently, Ohio Edison returned the goodwill gesture by reproducing the editorial as well as the ad that triggered it.

Although Lorain is no longer an industrial giant, the concept of promoting what Lorain has to offer in a national forum is still a desirable goal in 2020.