The Age When Branding Was Born

As promised, Dan Goodsell, who started it all last monday, gets the last word on Ads with 50's Storybook Styles. Take it away, Dan:


By 1960, General Mills had a nice mixed roster of
cereal that included the powerhouse Cheerios and
Wheaties along with sugar charged winners like Trix
and Cocoa Puffs. The Trix rabbit was just starting to
show his face and would soon be appearing on the
bright red boxes. Cocoa Puffs still had the Cocoa
Puffs kids who would soon be phased out for the much
more energetic Sonny the Cuckoo Bird. Johnny Jet now
graced the front of Jets replacing the less character
driven rocketship & sun that had fronted the box in
the late 1950's.

On Kix was the corn kicking kid and as you could
expect the kid was not long for the front of that box.
The Frosty O's bear would go through a few more
transformations until the cereal was discontinued in
the 1970's and not returning until just a few years
ago.

It would have been amazing to see all these boxes
lined up together on grocery store shelves. The ad
companies of the 1960's really knew how to put
together a line of cereals with a consistent visual feel
to them. This was the age where branding was born and
it has never been done better since this time.