Kroger Ad with Toppie – January 27, 1965

Here's a great full-page Kroger ad that ran in the Journal back on January 27, 1965 – 61 years ago today. As you can see, it features our favorite plaid pachyderm, Toppie, promoting Top Value Stamps.

It's a shame that not many companies utilize mascots to be the friendly, familiar face of their advertising. Newer ones, such as Mr. Mucus (yecch) for Mucinex are largely unappealing and contribute no emotional connection to the brand.  

Mascots that have survived for decades, such as Kellogg's cereal menagerie, have been arbitrarily redesigned so poorly (such as Toucan Sam and Tony the Tiger) that any goodwill or equity that did exist has been extinguished.

Anyway, I look at the 1965 ad above and am still amazed that Kroger – the largest supermarket chain in the country – abandoned our market back in the 1980s. 

Kroger had four locations listed in the 1965 ad: three in Lorain and one in Vermilion (in the South Shore Shopping Center). By 1980, Kroger ads in the Journal listed locations as Lorain, Elyria, Sheffield Lake and Vermilion.

A few years later in April 1983, Vermilion (my current town) was getting ready for its brand new Kroger store.

But only two years later, Kroger scrammed out of the Northeast Ohio market, as shown in this Journal 'Top Stories of the Year" blurb from December 29, 1985.

Today, Toppie is only a pleasant memory for Baby Boomers, and the Kroger Vermilion location is home to Giant Eagle. You can still go Krogering (if you're so inclined) out in Sandusky.

Gray Drug Ad – Sept. 1955

Although Top Value Stamps haven't existed since the company went out of business in the early 1980s, there are plenty of Baby Boomers who remember them. Krogers seems to have been the store that many of us remember as giving them out with purchase. 

Well, Gray Drug Stores did too. The nearly full page above from the Lorain Journal of Sept. 15, 1955 makes the announcement. At that time, there was just the Gray Drug store at the relatively new O'Neil - Sheffield Shopping Center.

Here's a copy of the 1955 catalog shown in the ad (poached from eBay).

What's interesting to me (since I'm a big fan of classic ad mascots) is the image of Toppie the Elephant in the ad. He seemed to debut in the local ads in 1955, so this is an early version of him. He's kind of bulky.

Within a year or so, Toppie would get re-designed to be a little cuter, with a more clearly defined head. Here's a detail from a 1956 ad.

And here's a magazine ad from 1960 with the Toppie design we all remember.

I'll never forget that elephant (so to speak). We had a Top Values Stamp lunch box and thermos with Toppie on it. A few years ago, a set just like ours was selling on an online auction website for $6,000.

Anyway, the page from the Lorain Journal includes an article about a neat arrangement in which students from the M. B Johnson School of Nursing (where a girl I dated in high school got her nursing degree) attended some classes at Oberlin College.

With its closing in 1987, M. B. Johnson School of Nursing joins Gray Drug Stores and Top Value Stamps as local institutions shown on this page of the Journal that aren't around any more.

Top Value Stamps Ad – Nov. 11, 1958

Oakwood Shopping Center opened in Lorain back on November 12, 1958 with a whole slew of stores, including Foodtown Supermarket, W. T. Grant Co., Allen Cleaners, F. W. Woolworth and Gray Drug Stores.

And since Gray Drug gave Top Value Stamps with purchases, the ad above featuring our pal Toppie the Elephant ran in the Lorain Journal on the eve of the opening.

As I've mentioned many times, Top Value Stamps really utilized their goodwill promotional pachyderm to drum up interest. Besides the lunch box and thermos that is worth a fortune today (that the Brady family owned), there were many items with his likeness, including the clock below that's currently on eBay.

There was even a safety sign that schools could apparently acquire with enough filled stamp books.

There was even a toy cash register.

Many of us oldsters remember the laborious task of affixing the stamps to the pages of the books, some of which didn't get redeemed, and ended up on eBay, decades later. I remember the book design below, which dates from 1966.

 

Although Top Value Stamps has been out of business for decades now, Toppie is still recognizable to enough sentimental Baby Boomers that his image appears on such items such as T-Shirts and mugs. 

Top Value Stamps Ad – May 2, 1962

We started out this week on the blog with a visit from our pal Reddy Kilowatt; we'll close the week with an ad featuring another advertising mascot, our favorite pachyderm with the tam o'shanter: Toppie, the Top Values Stamp elephant.

Above is the ad that ran in the Journal back on May 2, 1962 – sixty years ago this month.

The focus of the ad was that you needed to fill less stamp books to get a free gift from Top Value Stamps than their unnamed competitors, which I assume included S&H Green Stamps. The ad showed the 'price' of several items: a Kodak Brownie 8 Movie Camera (7-2/5 books); a Corning Ware 9-Cup Percolator (2-4/5 books) and a GE Spray Steam & Dry Iron (6 books).

The ad also shows a Ford Falcon. I was curious how many books it would cost, and if you needed a Ford Pickup Truck to take them all to the redemption center. But the car was only a prize in Top Value Stamps "Happy Days" Sweepstakes.

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Toppie's popped up on this blog many times.

Sohio Ad With Toppie – October 1971

Do you buy your gas at the same place each week?

If so, perhaps it’s because you have a loyalty card and earn points toward a variety of rewards, including free stuff, rebates or discounts towards other purchases. I have two such rewards cards in my wallet – one for Speedway and one for Mickey Mart. 

Well, fifty years ago, there was no such thing as rewards cards at gas stations, just charge cards. Thus trading stamps (such as nationally known S&H Green Stamps) were used to build loyalty, as they could be redeemed for various premiums.

The Sohio ad below, which appeared in the Journal on October 29, 1971, used the offer of extra Top Value Stamps as an incentive for customers to buy a fill-up. 

As you can see, good old Top Value Stamps advertising mascot Toppie the Elephant was pressed into service as the gas jockey in the ad.

I’ve written about Toppie before (including this post), and mentioned that at one time we had this lunch box and themos (below). At one time, an online auction website valued a mint one for around $6,000. (Sob!)

Courtesy Hake's

Anyway, Toppie packed his trunk and disappeared along with Top Value Stamps many years ago, and of course the Sohio brand is long gone.

Which explains why in 2021, I buy my gas at a station with a big plexiglas moose statue in front of it, and I have a plastic card with his portrait on it in my wallet.

Happy Fourth of July!

Well, it’s July 4th – and it’s hard to believe the year is half over already.

If you were preparing for a holiday feast in Lorain 60 years ago, you might have consulted this Kroger ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on July 1, 1957.

Note the appearance of our old pal Toppie, the Top Value Stamp elephant, at the top of the ad, appropriately enough.

Some of the food brands listed in the ad are kind of interesting.

‘Clover Valley Pork & Beans’ are featured. I recognize the Clover Valley brand from shopping trips to Dollar General; sure enough, after checking online, I see that while Kroger was the original registrant of the brand, Dollar General is now the trademark owner.

Note Swift’s Premium “wafer-sliced’ meats – exclusive to Kroger – including hard salami, bologna, cooked ham, cooked specialty, hot-o-collo and spiced luncheon meat (sounds like it might be Dutch Loaf). Swift’s history goes back to 1855; the company is still around, although it was purchased by a Brazilian company in 2007.

I like the brand name of the margarine listed in the ad: Eatmore Margarine. (It kind of reminds me of the character in the classic Monty Python Travel Agent sketch, with the name: Mr. Smoke-too-much.)

Top Value Stamp Ad – June 15, 1960

Back here, I waxed nostalgic (whatever that means) about Top Value Stamps, one of the original customer loyalty rewards programs. Well, here's another ad for the trading stamp enterprise that ran in the Lorain Journal on June 15, 1960.

Besides featuring good ol' Toppie the Elephant, the ad is interesting because it lists the addresses of the various redemption centers, including addresses in Elyria and Lakewood. I tried to figure out where the Elyria redemption center was, but that address – 2023 Lake Avenue – seems to have disappeared. It's not on the Auditor website and it's unGooglable.

I'm guessing that Mom must have picked up our Toppie lunchbox at Krogers.

Speaking of Toppie, I found an undated image of him that looks pretty different from the familiar version shown in the 1960 ad. The tin sign (below), which is listed on Hake's is undated.

Here's a closeup of Toppie.

So it's either an early version of the friendly pachyderm, or an image of him all grown up with an appropriate middle age spread.

Top Value Stamps Ad – March 27, 1957

Remember the original store "rewards" program – getting trading stamps at stores with your purchase, pasting them in books and then redeeming them for free gifts?

Lots of families did it in the 50s and 60s and we were no exception. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and sticking our huge backlog of stamps in the books – rather crookedly, too.)

That's why the Kroger ad above promoting Top Value Stamps brought back a lot of memories. It ran in The Lorain Journal on March 27, 1957.

It even features one of my favorite advertising mascots: Toppie, the Top Value Stamp Elephant.

Toppie embodied the concept of Scottish thrift, with his Tam O'Shanter, as well as the Tartan pattern covering his pachyderm physique. Since elephants never forget, he was also there to remind people not to forget to shop where Top Value stamps are given out.

Toppie was popular enough in 1958 to star in his own comic book (below). Although it seems kind of cruel to show the gentle beast's trunk getting flattened by a steam roller, the accident was the plot device that drove the comic book story. Want to read it? Click here.)

Toppie was also made into a cute stuffed toy.

Courtesy www.hakes.com

 He was even featured on some of the Top Value gift merchandise, including a lunch box (below).

We had one exactly like it (including the thermos) while I was growing up. My siblings and I all used it at some point or another.

I wonder whatever happened to it?

Anyway, here's a link to a great flickr set of Top Value Stamp Catalog images.