Blue Bonnet Margarine Ad – Nov. 14, 1957

I couldn’t help posting this ad for Blue Bonnet Margarine that appeared in the Lorain Journal on November 14, 1957 – 60 years ago this month. The ad is fun to look at with a lot of stuff going on.

A vintage Blue Bonnet package features a similar pencil promotion

There’s the ahead-of-its-time promotional gimmick of ordering pencils engraved with a name or wacky saying. Suggestions include the now politically incorrect “Date Bait Dotty,” “Two-Gun Max,” and "Return This You Cheap So and So.” (We had these types of pencils as stocking stuffers over the years, although I think ours came from the Miles Kimball catalog.)

Anyway, the ad layout is nice and clean as well, with great curved typography (done the old-fashioned way without Illustrator software) and cute drawings of the type that were later parodied on Ren & Stimpy.

The Blue Bonnet box is there too, giving us a glimpse of Blue Bonnet Sue, its well-known, comely advertising mascot.

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While the Blue Bonnet brand seems to date from the mid-1940s judging from available ads, Blue Bonnet Sue began appearing on the package in the early 1950s. She's undergone subtle changes over the years. Originally she looked like she'd be right at home on the frontier; eventually she evolved to a more glamorous look.

A 1953 Ad

These days, Sue is still on the package, but sadly, she plays second fiddle to a stack of flapjacks.