Friday, July 5, 2024

Cities Service & Frankies Ads – July 1964

 

To finish out the week, here is a pair of big ads for companies that have been featured here before. The ads appeared in the Journal on July 1, 1964 and are both of a seasonal nature.

Cities Service – today's CITGO – had a special summertime promotion involving root beer (another favorite topic on this blog). The purchase of ten gallons of gasoline entitled you to a free quart of Dad's Root Beer.

Despite the appealing name (not unlike Mother's Oats), I don't remember drinking too much Dad's Root Beer. There were just too many brands, and Mom seemed to favor Frostie for a long time, with some Hires Root Beer here and there.

What's interesting to me is the friendly beaver mascot for Cities. I don't recall seeing him before, and he seems like he'd be right at home in the Great White North, where appropriately there are a lot of companies with beaver mascots.

From the CITGO website, here's a nice color graphic of the 'Eager Beaver.'
The little buck-toothed mascot was also featured in his own little activity book.
And speaking of mascots, Superior's Frankies always utilized their friendly frankfurter well. In the above ad, he's directing Journal readers to enter a contest to win a trip to the 1964 World's Fair and be his guest. What's a little odd is that the ad notes that "June is Frankies Month."

Anyway, here's a 10-second commercial featuring Frankie himself.