Advertising
Some Interesting Wyoming Ads
1. “Individual Towels”
Sign, posted in 1868, promoting one of the best features of a hotel in Benton, now a ghost town in Carbon County. Other less exclusive establishments did not make such claims.
2. “Since man to man has been unjust
I scarcely know what man to trust.
I’ve trusted so many to my sorrow—
So pay today and I’ll trust tomorrow.”
—Poetic sign over Belander’s Butcher Shop, Carbon, 1880s
3. “All you prospector boys, drop in and get a map of your mugs.”
Newspaper ad for Ferris Photo Shop, Dillon Doublejack, 1900
4. “St. Jacobs Oil”
Sign painted on rocks before 1900 and visible to railway passengers from trains crossing the Dale Creek trestle in southeastern Wyoming. Advertising space on the nearby Ames Monument was once offered for sale at $20 per square foot or $160,000 annually, but not by the Union Pacific, who put a quick stop to the deal.
5. “Twist the Grey Mule’s tail and take the elevator.”
Bill Nye’s sign at the bottom of the stairs leading to his second floor office of the Laramie Boomerang (named for a mule). The main floor of the building, located on the southwest corner of 3rd and Garfield, housed a livery stable.
6. “Wagner’s Pants Are Down”
When editor Bill Nye sought an ad from Laramie dry goods merchant Henry Wagner, the merchant told Nye he didn’t think advertising worked. Nye, the intrepid ad salesman, noticed that Wagner had a sale on pants. He wrote up the sale as a “news item” in his paper the next morning. The pants sold out quickly and Wagner became a believer in newspaper advertising. When Nye founded his own paper, Wagner backed it financially.
7. “Grit, Gumption and Get There”
Newspaper slogan of early day Worland Grit editor Tom Daggett.
8. “Home of Rock Springs Coal—Welcome”
The sign, erected about 1930, spanned C Street in Rock Springs. Half of the cost was paid by coal mine operators and the rest through popular subscription. The sign was moved to Western Wyoming College in 1980.
9. “Welcome to Fort Laramie—Population 350 Good People and 6 Soreheads”
Signs are on the eastern and western edges of the town of Fort Laramie and updated every ten years to reflect the change of population and, presumably, the number of soreheads.
10. “Drink Sweetwater Beer and Be Healthy”
Ad for the Sweetwater Brewing Company, Green River, it appeared in many newspapers, including the Wyoming Industrial Journal, July, 1907.
11. “Butch’s Taxidermy—Butch Mounts Anything”
Sign advertising a Fort Bridger business.
12. “Everybody’s—Members Only”
The contradictory sign was on the door of “Everybody’s,” an after-hours club popular with Laramie residents in the 1950s and 1960s. In theory, only members were served, but “membership cards” were available for purchase at the door.
13. “Find Yourself in Wyoming”
Wyoming Travel Commission sign near the entrance to Lincoln Tunnel, New York City, in October, 1987. In 1989, television ads starred the cartoon character, Bullwinkle Moose. The moose told national TV viewers, “If the last moose you watched was on Saturday mornings, it’s time to find yourself in Wyoming.” In early 1992, the travel commission admitted making a mistake with the slogan, “A Great Land Outdoors” after many residents complained it didn’t make sense. The original slogan, “The Great Land Outdoors,” would not fit within the sign space. In the 1990s, the commission’s slogan was “Wyoming: Like No Place on Earth.”
14. “Ten miles from water, 20 miles from timber and no grub in the house. God bless our home.”
The words, painted on a cracker box nailed above a cabin door, were seen by President Chester Arthur’s party between Fort Washakie and Yellowstone in 1883.
15. “Somewhere West of Laramie”
One of the most famous advertisements of all time, the ad was written by Edward S. Jordan, co-founder and owner of the Cleveland-based automobile manufacturing firm using the ad. The Jordan car was priced at about $2,500 when the lowest priced Ford was selling for about $500. The car was selling badly so Jordan took a train ride to the West Coast, hoping he could come up with a plan to sell more vehicles. As Jordan’s train passed through southern Wyoming, Jordan watched a beautiful young woman ride her horse alongside the train for a short distance. The sight impressed Jordan so much that he turned to a companion and asked where they were. “Somewhere west of Laramie,” was the reply. Back home, Jordan sketched out an ad with the slogan. The ad first ran in Saturday Evening Post in June, 1923. Sales of the Jordan cars picked up immediately. Soon, other auto makers were using the new form of “image advertising.” Despite the strong sales resulting from the ads, the Jordan company eventually failed, a victim of the Great Depression. Nonetheless, the ad became legendary. In 1945, Printer’s Ink magazine readers voted it the third greatest ad ever created.
16. “Dalton Motors–Clean Comfortable Ladies”
The ad accidentally omitted the words “rest rooms” at the end of the line. Wyoming Eagle, 1927. Years later, publisher Tracy McCraken laughed that such an error made an editor “wish he were moving to Fiji.”
17. “Summer petticoats, made of Everett, Zephr and Mercerized ginghams, extremely well made and very wide.”
Laramie Sentinel ad, 1872.
18. “No skinning or hanging in the park.”
Sign in the Kaycee City Park, 1999.
19. “Oysters R In”
The sign hung outside the Palace Meat Market in Evanston, starting about September 15 each year, notifying customers that fresh oysters from Baltimore had arrived. Oysters were shipped in by train over the transcontinental route.
20. “Wanted: 100 Enterprising Young Men….”
The ad, placed by William Ashley and Andrew Henry who were forming a fur-trading firm, appeared in St. Louis newspapers in March, 1822. Among those responding to the ad were Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith and David E. Jackson.
21. “Eat American lamb, 10 million coyotes can’t be wrong”
Statement painted on signs in sheep-raising areas of Wyoming in the 1990s.
22. “Anything, everything from a needle to a threshing machine”
Ad for A. G. Rupp General Merchandise in Worland Grit, 1906.
23. “Special shirt and pants sale”
A Big Horn Basin newspaper accidentally left out one crucial letter from the word “shirt” in an advertisement for a clothing store. Fearing that he had lost an advertiser, the editor called to apologize and not charge for the ad. The store owner told him that business had been so brisk after the offending ad that he wanted to have the paper run it again!
24. “The Laramie Peacock”
NBC color programs from 1962-75 often began with the peacock in which the bird fanned its bright plumage against a kaleidoscopic color background. Because the version first appeared in the introduction to the series, “Laramie,” on Jan. 1, 1962, it became known as the “Laramie peacock.”
25. “Farmers, please change your work boots before coming to the show.”
An advertisement from the Armada Theatre, Lovell, c. 1940. Theater, built in 1908, became a motion picture theater in 1913.
Some TV-Magazine Ads Filmed in Wyoming or Mentioning Wyoming over the Years
1. Marlboro
Ads for the cigarettes have been shot in western Wyoming during the 1960s and 1970s. Wyomingite Darrel Winfield was one “Marlboro man” featured in print and television ads. Several of the ads were shot on the Teton Valley Ranch near Jackson.
2. Levi Dockers
A February, 1991, TV ad for the jeans included the statement that an individual’s luggage had been sent to Cheyenne, Wyo., apparently a disaster for Levi jean wearers.
3. Seabreeze Skin Cream
Although not filmed in Wyoming, a 1991 ad for the product featured two women, claiming to be from Wyoming, credited the product with giving them “gorgeous skin.”
4. Redman Chewing Tobacco
The company used Rawlins, Saratoga and Hanna locations for a 1986 ad.
5. Budweiser Beer
Anheuser-Busch’s ad agency filmed a Budweiser beer television commercial in northwest Wyoming in 1988. Other beer companies have used Wyoming locations. Miller, for instance, filmed in the state in 1984; Genessee Beer in the same year. Torrington auctioneer Lex Madden appeared in a beer advertisement in 1993.
6. Old Milwaukee Beer
Dan Woodward, an employee of the Jackson National Fish Hatchery, appeared as a fly fisherman in the ad, filmed at Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. The two other actors in the 30-second segment were “Breck O’Neill, a stuntman, and his downstairs neighbor, Todd Link,” according to a detailed description of the production of the ad written for a historic resource study for the NPS by William H. Goetzmann.
7. Toyota Corolla
Various Wyoming locations were used for a 1984 ad for the Japanese car company.
8. Jeep Cherokee
An ad was filmed at Devils Canyon Overlook near Lovell in May 1990, for the Jeep Cherokee. An ad appearing on television in 2006 showed the vehicle parked in front of Ames Monument, the 60-foot-high pyramid off I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie.
9. General Motors
A General Motors safety ad televised in February 1992, noted: “Some guy from Wyoming could be driving that car.” The meaning wasn’t made clear.
10. Saturn automobiles
In July, 1996, Pinedale was featured on a national television ad for Saturns, a now-defunct brand made by a General Motors subsidiary until 2009. The narrator tells about being flown 250 miles to the nearest Saturn dealership in Salt Lake City. Main street of Pinedale was shown as well as the local post office.
11. Chevrolet
During the 1997 All Star baseball game, a Chevrolet rolled onto the TV screen, the driver’s side door opened and the whole Teton Range flowed out—”Like a Rock.”. .
12. Honda
The TV ad in 2000 showed a driver parking in front of Jackson Drug in Jackson and, as he got out of the vehicle, his dog sneaked a drink from his soft-drink cup. The town square and other parts of Jackson are shown in the background.
13. Other automobiles
Two car companies filmed commercials along the Beartooth Highway in northwest Wyoming during the summer of 1996.
14. Prelude Cigarettes
The British-owned firm was one of several foreign companies who used Wyoming locations for advertising spots in recent years.
15. Danon Yogurt
The 1987 ad was one of many made by food companies using Wyoming backdrops.
16. Amtrak
The passenger rail service was criticized when it utilized a backdrop of the Grand Tetons in a televised commercial promoting the “great scenery” along the Amtrak route. The ad appeared on television a few months after Amtrak pulled its trains from the route across southern Wyoming, electing to use what they called a “more scenic route through Colorado.” Of course, neither line passes anywhere near Jackson Hole or the Tetons.
17. Bank advertising
Numerous regional bank television commercials have been made with Wyoming backdrops. Credit card companies also have utilized Wyoming scenes.
18. Microsoft
A two-page magazine advertisement for the computer software giant in February, 1995, carried the following heading: “NPR changed the station in Chugwater, Wyoming and things haven’t been the same since.” The ad was selling Microsoft Word. In 1998-99, Microsoft ran a series of national TV ads featuring residents of Lusk and how computers had changed their operations. One such ad ran during the 1999 Super Bowl.
19. Cub Cadet lawn mower
In March, 1997, the company featured an ad showing a man riding a lawn mower with the statement made that “Wyoming could use a trim.”
20. Metamucil
The company advertised the regularity of its laxative by showing a park ranger surreptitiously dumping a bottle down Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, implying that is how the geyser remains “regular.” The ad met controversy from park officials who said the ad encouraged vandalism of the natural features. The company added a written statement, flashed on the screen under a scene, noting that the ad was a simulation only.