Whatzit? A History of Iconography in Advertising

By James S. Panero | Wednesday, October 23, 1996

With all this talk about mascots and College icons, it might be interesting to glance over the boldest era in iconography since the Christian Middle Ages. I am of course referring to Mr. Peanut, Tony the Tiger, and the remaining pantheon of 20th Century advertising characters.

Sometime at the turn of the century, an oats company began printing a picture of a Quaker on its packaging. No one in the company was Quaker — indeed the manufacturer had nothing to do with the Society of Friends — but the idea was wildly successful. The company soon changed its name to Quaker Oats and the rest was oatmeal history.

The Quaker Oats Man endures as one of the oldest advertising characters still in use today. Shoppers still associate the Quaker with wholesomeness, honesty, and simplicity. The Quaker Oats Man would never overcharge for a hot breakfast cereal. He's the salt of the earth, and he wants you to eat a good breakfast.

Of course there's nothing behind that. The man never existed. But the campaign works because the Quaker Oats Man is an effective simplification. He embodies everything we want in oatmeal. He is a powerful symbol.

Advertisers have since tried to duplicate the Quaker Oats Man's success for countless other products. Their efforts often demonstrate the lowest level of mankind's imagination, but in many ways they mirror cultural shortcomings of the day. Many early advertising characters closely followed the Quaker Oats Man's lead and used racial and ethnic stereotypes to get their messages across. Aunt Jemima and Uncle Mose were 'fun loving black sharecroppers.' Chef Boy-Ar-Dee was the 'jolly Italian' chef. Tropic-Ana was the 'islander with oranges a-plenty.'

Since these early characters played on some of the worst stereotypes of the time, advertisers began experimenting with other forms of dynamic iconography. Literal figures came as one solution: just stick a mouth and eyes on your product and voil?. Mr. Peanut, invented in 1916, still remains a popular favorite of this genre. The Heinz Aristocrat Tomato, Mr. Softee, and the Kool-Aid Man follow close behind.

Animals made good icons from the start, and advertisers soon learned to incorporate them with a new phenomenon — the Saturday Morning cartoon. So emerged Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, the Trix Rabbit, Little Green Sprout, and innumerable others on our TV screens.

Soon everyone wanted a nice, lovable, sellable icon for their advertising. The trick was to make these icons as innocuous as possible and to reach the broadest demographic. So icons started to get less specific.

A developed human form became a blob with legs, arms, and a big, smiling face. McDonald's purple Grimace character is a charming example. The Ritalin Man and the 7-Up Dots also come to mind.

In 1996, generations of experience at turning amorphous, human-featured purple blobs into marketing juggernauts culminated in perhaps the greatest stroke of marketing genius Western civilization has produced — the Whatzit.

The 1996 Olympic Committee spent a fortune developing this commercial mascot. They ran proposals repeatedly through children's test groups, trying to develop the most marketable look. The result: a blob with huge, energetic eyes, an enormous smile, arms and legs, and not one other distinguishing characteristic.

Commercial iconography fell to different shortcomings throughout the century. Aunt Jemima was a racist stereotype, as were many other early advertising characters — the product of an unequal age. The Whatzit had a much different shortcoming. In this gender & race-neutral age, creators ended up with something without any form, a symbol that tried to please everybody but in the end served only to annoy quite a few.

If anyone is thinking about creating a new Dartmouth mascot, don't fall prey to the traps of the day. No one needs another WhatzitÙ.

Whatzit? A History of Iconography in Advertising

Article Tools

Related Articles