The great silent salesman
Evan Zabawski | TLT From the Editor January 2019
How can you sell a product without describing it?
At the ‘boy with slate’ program’s peak, Archbold’s En-Ar-Co-grams were displayed in front of 12,000 or so sales outlets.
© Ben Eckart, www.enarco.com.
Thanks to photo-sharing social networking sites, we can see many great examples blending humor and advertising from around the world. Among the best examples from businesses that draw a loyal following, the ubiquitous sidewalk sandwich board, with its colorful chalk work, employs everything but menu-based descriptions. The anticipation of the next board is a mild addiction of passersby, and the result is a successful, albeit covert, advertising campaign.
This technique is not new, but it is rooted in the world of petroleum. The story begins with The National Refining Co. located in Cleveland, which first started refining kerosene as lamp oil in 1882. In 1890, the future president of National Refining, Frank B. Fretter, started what is credited as the second-oldest company newsletter, called The National News.
The National News was a free small pamphlet distributed monthly to customers and dealers containing advertising and jokes (a similar format to today’s Coffee News, found in restaurants all over the country). Heavily dosed with three-liners, He and She jokes and tongue twisters, epigrams started to be included in 1910. The July 1916 issue saw Charles L. Archbold step in as the new editor, and he changed the character of National News to become sprightlier and timelier, and while it could never be accused of being sophisticated, it eventually mastered the art of the subtle sell.
The September 1916 issue featured a cover image of a schoolboy wearing a polka-dotted shirt and checkered knickers standing in front of a blackboard covered with messages and doodles. Though he was not an immediate hit, he was when he reappeared with slate in hand on the cover of the September 1920 issue. In 1921 the company offered its dealers a six-foot recreation of the “boy with slate” figure to display outside their stations, plus a three-foot countertop version, and pledged an unending supply of epigrams courtesy of Charlie Archbold.
Examples of his epigrams include, “Geometry must be studied from all angles,” “Buying a radio is a sound investment” and “The man on the flying trapeze knows the ropes.” Through the 1920s and into the late 1930s, these would be updated every second day of business, drawing anticipatory eyes of the curious to the signature slate bordered with EN-AR-CO Motor Oil and White Rose Gasoline product names.
Though most of the time these epigrams would be worth a chuckle, one Monday-Tuesday variant drew the ire, and lawsuit, of Omaha, Nebraska lawyer and president of the Omaha Bar Association Edward R. Burke. On June 25, 1927, Burke brought suit for $475,000 against the National Refining Co. alleging he suffered nearly half a million dollars in damages for defamation of character. The slate read: “Tell the truth to your lawyer and he will lie for you.” No word on the outcome of the lawsuit, but Burke did become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives six years later, and after serving for two years became Nebraska’s senator for six years.
At the boy with slate program’s peak, Archbold’s En-Ar-Co-grams were displayed in front of 12,000 or so sales outlets. The boy was never given a nickname, but his likeness (with slate) was trademarked in 1923 and used on cans, barrels and other containers for gasoline, grease, lubricating compounds and oils. He even appeared on the radio for several years, featured nightly along with “his Girl Friend Ethyl, the EN-AR-CO Motor Oil Orchestra and the White Rose Gasoline Quartet.”
Though he was retired from cans in 1953, and may be largely unknown today, the boy pioneered an advertising format known as brand marketing. He managed to earn loyalty and sell an entire line of products, not just without talking about the products but without even uttering a word.
Evan Zabawski, CLS, is the senior technical advisor for TestOil in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. You can reach him at ezabawski@testoil.com.