Marketing Meat – Jan. 1966

Lorainites ate a lot of meat back in the 1960s. In addition to the supermarkets with their weekly meaty specials, the city supported at least a half-dozen retail butcher shops.

Several of them incorporated a beef cow into their store's logo, including Mike Polansky's, Lorain County Meats and Tony's Meats. Here's a sample of each that ran in the Journal from early January 1966.

Jan. 5, 1966

Jan. 5, 1966

Jan. 3, 1966

As you can see, the Tony's Meats ad tried something different than the other ads. It gave up some of the retail space in its ad in order to feature a little cartoon. This continued for several months.

Each cartoon depicted some interesting fact. A week later, an "answer" revealed an explanation. It was loosely referred to as a quiz although there wasn't really a question.

Here's the rest of the January 1966 ads. (Be forewarned, the one from Jan. 31st is needlessly racist.)

Jan. 12, 1966

Jan. 17, 1966

Jan. 26, 1966

Jan. 31, 1966

I had wondered if all the cartoons were created by a Journal artist until I noticed that two of the illustrations contained a small credit line: © TOBY EATON ASSOC.

I couldn't find anything online about Toby Eaton Associates. Its weekly quiz feature didn't seem to be widely used across the country, since I could only find one other meat market (in Lompoc, California) using it.

Tony's Meats used the quiz in its ads until the end of March 1966, when it was apparently dropped to make room for cartoon Easter rabbits.