Burma-Shave

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Burma-Shave

From 1925 to 1963, a brushless shaving cream called Burma-Shave became a ubiquitous and much-loved part of the American scene—not because of the product itself, but because of the roadside signs that advertised it in the form of humorous poems. Motorists in 43 states enjoyed slowing down to read six signs spelling out the latest jingle, always culminating in the Burma-Shave trademark. A typical example might be "PITY ALL /THE MIGHTY CAESARS /THEY PULLED /EACH WHISKER OUT /WITH TWEEZERS /BURMA SHAVE." The inspiration of Burma-Vita, a family-owned business in Minneapolis, the signs caught the public fancy with their refreshing "soft sell" approach. The uniqueness of the venue was another plus, and in time the Burma company took to offering jingles that promoted highway safety and similar public services—still finishing off, however, with that sixth Burma-Shave sign. Even the public itself was eventually invited to help create the jingles. The Burma-Shave phenomenon was a public relations technique without precedent, and its popularity was reflected in everything from radio comedy sketches to greeting cards. Though long gone, the Burma-Shave signs remain a fondly recalled memory of American life in the mid-twentieth century.

In the early 1920s, the Odell family of Minneapolis, Minnesota, marketed, albeit without much success, a salve which, because key ingredients came from Burma, they called Burma-Vita. The next product that they developed was a refinement of brushless shaving cream, which they naturally dubbed Burma-Shave. The Shave wasn't selling much better than the Vita when family member Allan Odell happened to notice a series of roadside signs advertising a gas station—"GAS," "OIL," "RESTROOMS," etc.—and he had a brainstorm. "Every time I see one of these setups," he thought, "I read every one of the signs. So why can't you sell a product that way?" In the autumn of 1925, the Odells drove their first experimental signposts into the soon-to-be-freezing soil along the side of two roads outside Minneapolis. These first serial messages were neither humorous nor poetic—but they worked. For the first time, the Odells started receiving repeat orders from druggists whose customers traveled those two highways.

As their business started thriving, the Odells began to develop the pithy, light-hearted, rhyming jingles for which Burma-Shave quickly became famous. Hitherto, advertising orthodoxy had stipulated that most ad-copy should be verbose and serious. Obviously, verbosity was out of the question when the medium was a series of roadside signs instead of a magazine page. And the Odells preferred not to browbeat their potential customers while they were enjoying a drive in the country. The result was such refreshingly unpretentious verse as the following: "DOES YOUR HUSBAND /MISBEHAVE /GRUNT AND GRUMBLE /RANT AND RAVE /SHOOT THE BRUTE SOME /BURMA-SHAVE." Or: "THE ANSWER TO /A MAIDEN'S /PRAYER /IS NOT A CHIN /OF STUBBY HAIR /BURMA-SHAVE." It was discovered that the time it took a driver to go from one sign to the next afforded him more seconds to absorb the message than if he were reading an ad in a newspaper. What's more, as Alexander Woollcott pointed out, it was as difficult to read just one Burma-Shave sign as it was to eat one salted peanut. And the humorous content, so unlike the common run of dreary ad copy, further served to endear the signs to the driving public. Families would read them aloud, either in unison or with individual members taking turns.

Eventually the Burma-Shave jingles were as universally recognized as any facet of contemporary Americana. A rustic comedian could joke about his hometown being so small that it was located between two Burma-Shave signs. The signs themselves often figured in the radio sketches of such notable funnymen as Amos n' Andy, Fred Allen, Jimmy Durante, and Bob Hope. The popularity of the signs encouraged the Odells to devote a certain portion of their jingles each year to such public service causes as fire prevention and highway safety, as in: "TRAIN APPROACHING /WHISTLE SQUEALING /PAUSE! /AVOID THAT /RUN-DOWN FEELING!" Eventually, the public was brought into the act via heavily promoted contests that invited people to come up with their own jingles, many of which were bought and used. Often, the attention given the signs in the media amounted to free public relations and goodwill for the Burma-Shave company.

Ironically, one of the greatest instigators for free publicity was the company's announcement in 1963 that they would be phasing out the signs. Although this news was greeted by a wave of national nostalgia, the fact was that the Burma-Vita company—one of the last holdouts against corporate takeovers—had finally allowed itself to be absorbed into the Phillip Morris conglomerate, and they could no longer justify the expense of the signs in light of the decreasing return on its advertising investment. It was simply a different world than the one in which the Burma-Shave signs had been born, and it was time to retire them gracefully. While it lasted, their fame had seemed all pervasive. As one 1942 jingle put it: "IF YOU /DON'T KNOW /WHOSE SIGNS /THESE ARE /YOU CAN'T HAVE /DRIVEN VERY FAR /BURMA-SHAVE." That the mythos of Burma-Shave has outlasted the physical reality of the signs is evidenced in the fact that they are still being parodied and imitated to this day—and, whenever this is done, people still get the joke.

—Preston Neal Jones