The era of advertising mascots seems to be about over.
Mascots based on actual human beings are pretty much a no-no, due to the fear of offending someone. In another ten years, only a very small handful of classic icons will still be deemed acceptable (such as Mr. Clean).
Animal mascots are okay, however. Many that have been around for a while are still going strong on TV commercials (such as the Geico gecko). Everybody loves animals!
As I noted back on this post, grocery giant Kroger once had a whole menagerie of mascots on its ads and packaging back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The chain featured a distinctively drawn rabbit with a thick outline around it in many of its newspaper ads.
Additional animal mascots were introduced, such as a steer (to ‘steer' consumers to Kroger Tenderay Brand meats), and a nutty chipmunk to promote its nuts and peanut butter.
Which brings us to this nearly full-page ad, which ran in the
Lorain Journal back on January 4, 1961 – sixty-one years ago today. It has the aforementioned rabbit, steer and chipmunk, all promoting Kroger’s one cent sale.
One interesting thing about the ad (for me at least) is the inclusion of the photos of the cans, particularly the can of
Clover Valley Pork and Beans. I’ve seen plenty of Clover Valley products in Dollar General. Is it the same brand?
It’s hard to say. One of those ubiquitous trademark information pages on the internet shows that the Clover Valley brand dated back to 1921 and was a trademark by Kroger Grocery & Bakery Company, specifically for canned sugar corn, canned stringless beans, pork and beans, and fruit preserves (probably much like Ann Page was the ‘house’ brand for A&P). However the trademark expired in November 1992.
Interestingly, Dollar General filed a trademark registration for Clover Valley in February 1997. Perhaps the company decided that if it was a good house brand for Kroger, it might make a good house brand for them too.
