1923
IT HAPPENED IN…1923
The national economy was gradually recovering,
but agriculture remained depressed.
The New York State legislature repealed the
state’s Prohibition enforcement law, one of the first steps toward
the eventual national abolition of Prohibition.
President Harding died of a heart attack and
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day.
Newspapers exposed the Ku Klux Klan.
The Klan claimed to have one million members.
More vehicles were manufactured during 1923 than
were produced between 1901 and 1915.
Over 15 million automobiles were registered in the United
States. New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland had more autos than the rest of
the world combined.
Annual styling changes became the norm and one in four U.S. families
bought or sold a vehicle yearly.
An earthquake devastated Tokyo, Japan killing
132,807 people, destroying 500,000 houses, and leaving a million
people homeless.
A major fire in Berkeley, California destroyed
640 structures, including 584 houses in neighborhoods near the
University of California campus.
A new air speed record of 243.76 mph was set at
the National Air Races.
The U.S. Open golf tournament was won by amateur
Robert T. “Bobby” Jones.
The Charleston was a huge craze with dance
marathons taking place across the country.
The state of North Dakota outlawed dancing on
Sundays.
Zenith Radio was founded.
Time
magazine was launched.
Newly introduced products and inventions included
ethyl gasoline, three-position traffic lights, balloon tires,
electric shavers, Maidenform brassieres, tetanus vaccine, diaphragm
contraceptives, and Butterfinger and Milky Way candy bars.
Coca-Cola introduced corrugated cardboard six
bottle cartons for take home use.
6,818 U.S. soft drink bottling plants were in
operation. Per capita
consumption was 41.1 bottles.
(Figure
1923-01, From
Rum Running to Soft Drinks, 12 page booklet)
From Rum
Running to Soft Drinks includes an unsupported claim that Hires "has
continued in favor over 50 years, the oldest of all nationally known
soft drinks.” 50 years earlier was 1872, so the copywriter was
stretching the facts considerably. Likewise, Hires was certainly
one of the earliest
nationally known soft drinks, but not necessarily
the oldest.
Of particular interest, however, is the booklet's very specific
declaration that 11,520 glasses of Hires Root Beer were sold in 1877.
This claim pre-dates all other annual sales figures
previously published by Hires lending additional support to dating Hires Root Beer's introduction to the public
to 1877, not 1876 as
is widely claimed.
This article appeared in the February 17, 1923 issue of
Chicago Commerce:
Seek Out The Romance
In Your Job, Is Message To Advertising Council
"There is romance in every man’s job,” according to
W. Russell Green, advertising manager of Hires Root Beer company, who
addressed the Advertising Council at its recent Thursday luncheon
meeting. Mr. Green, a
member of the Poor Richard Club of Philadelphia, told members of the
council of his search for “romance” in his work and drove home the point
that every man should look for his element in his job.
As an illustration of the romance in business he told the story of Hire’s Root Beer, how the ingredients for this drink are gathered from all over the world and how romance enters into the securing of these products in foreign lands. Following his address he showed several reels of motion pictures made by the company, which revealed the manner in which sugar, ginger, sarsaparilla and other ingredients are gathered in South America.
Mr. Green’s talk was in part as follows…
“I have drawn all business into what I call the
triangle of business. At
the base I would put the word ’product.’
It seems to me there has never been any real, genuine success
without a good, genuine product.
“On the other side of the triangle I would put the
word ‘personnel’…the right kind of personnel is absolutely fundamental
in a successful business.
“On the third side of the triangle, completing it, I
would write a word which went out of our business vocabulary during the
war, because that was the period of taking orders, you know.
It was just coming in before the war.
It went out during the war and is coming back.
I believe that more and more as competition increases and as
there are more products to supply human wants this word must be more and
more emphasized in business, and that is the word ‘service’…
“Two or three years ago we sent a camera man on a
long trip. He was gone ten
months and traveled 25,000 miles.
He took pictures of some of the ingredients in our product, Hires
Root Beer. We wanted to
prove to the American public what we had been telling them for half a
century, that ours was genuine, not made from synthetic oils or coal-tar
products, but made from real genuine ingredients.
So we wanted to get some pictures of those ingredients in their
native climes and incidentally we realized as we began to see those
pictures the amount of romance there was back of such an ordinary thing
as a five-cent glass of Hires Root Beer, and I submit to you, ladies and
gentlemen, if there is romance back of a product like ours there is
romance back of your job, I care not what it is.
Clearly pleased with having produced the From Rum Running to Soft Drinks booklet for Hires, The United States Printing & Lithograph Company placed this magazine advertisement containing the booklet's front and back cover images. Note the caption indicating "This booklet material was originated and produced in our Brooklyn plant and is one of our 'Products that sell other Products.'"
(Figure
1923-01.5, magazine advertisement, 8.25" x 12.0")
Heavy promotion of Hires Household Extract included
distribution of this die-cut, cardboard, Hires Household Extract-shaped
card.
(Figure 1923-02, Hires
Household Extract package-shaped card, 2.125” x 1.0”)
(Figure 1923-03, cardboard
hanger)
The following three advertisements appear to be
different, yet they are identical in content and illustrate how Hires
continually freshened material.
Note return of the Hires Boy’s image, and specifying the price
for Hires Household Extract was 35¢ in Canada and $4.00 in foreign
markets.
(Figure
1923-04,
Saturday Evening Post, March 17, 1923)
(Figure
1923-05,
Saturday Evening Post, March 24, 1923)
(Figure
1923-06,
Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1923)
The series of Hires Household Extract advertisements
used in Saturday Evening Post
magazines were reworked and turned into this advertisement specifically
promoting Hires Ginger Ale.
(Figure 1923-07, Hires
Household Extract advertisement, 4.5” x 6.0”)
Hires also enlisted boys and girls for product
launches in selected cities.
A premium catalog folder was a key element of the marketing plan.
A premium catalog was designed to entice youngsters into selling
bottles of Hires Household Extract for Ginger Ale to “friends and
neighbors” in order to earn the pictured prizes.
Illustrated here are the front and back pages of the folder, plus
the premium information (split into three overlapping images in order to
show the full detail). Also
note the claim “The Charles E. Hires Company who have been in business
in Philadelphia for fifty-four years,” dating the company’s founding as
1869.
(Figure 1923-08, premium
catalog front page, 8.5” x 11.0”)
(Figure 1923-08, premium
information pages, 8.5” x 22.0”)
(Figure 1923-08, premium
catalog back page, 8.5” x 11.0”)
The June 20, 1923 issue of Hires Bottling News is an example of one way the company communicated directly with the bottlers. Volume II, Number 8 included guidance on product quality, lubrication for delivery and sales vehicles, newspaper advertising, sales tips, and insight into company standards for hiring salesmen.
(Figure
1923-09, Hires
Bottling News, Volume II, Number 8, June 20, 1923)
The
lead article in the June 20, 1923 issue of
Hires Bottling News reminded
bottlers to pay special attention to carefully following prescribed
mixing formulas for Hires products.
Similar instructions were provided via paper labels such as these
examples that were routinely attached to shipments of containers of
Hires Root Beer Solution, Hires Ginger Ale Solution, and Hires Root Beer
Concentrated Syrup.
(Figure 1923-10, paper labels,
7.0” diameter)
(Figure
1923-11,
Saturday Evening Post, July 28, 1923)
(Figure
1923-11.5, magazine advertisement, 5.0" x 6.5")
(Figure
1923-12,
Saturday Evening Post, August 4, 1923)
The back of this tri-fold Hires Household Extract brochure included directions for making root beer and ginger ale in English, French, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and German, similar to extract carton inserts.
(Figure 1923-13, tri-fold
Hires Household Extract brochure)
The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes
was a nine page, 3.25" x 4.5" promotional booklet produced for distribution to children.
In addition to several illustrated pages of Mother Goose nursery
rhymes, the advertising images and copy duplicated those found in the
tri-fold Hires Household Extract brochure.
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, front cover)
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, verses)
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, verses)
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, Household
Extracts)
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, inside back
cover)
(Figure
1923-14. The
Hires Book of Mother Goose Rhymes, back cover)
(Figure 1923-15, embossed tin
tacker, 10.0” x 14.0”, courtesy of Mike Godown)
A smaller version of the same tin sign was produced as a wall hanger.
(Figure 1923-15.5, embossed
tin wall hanger, 6.5” x 5.5”)
(Figure 1923-16, cardboard fan, front, 14.0” x 8.5”)
(Figure 1923-16, cardboard fan, back, 14.0” x 8.5”)
Shaking the Hires Roll Bingo game caused five small
steel balls to roll and land in the depressed dots.
Score five in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally
across the corners and “BINGO wins FREE 5¢ mug.”
The tin case has a glass or plexiglass surface.
(Figure 1923-17, Hires Roll Bingo game)
This topper fit over a crown top Hires bottle
creating an attractive counter or window display.
(Figure 1923-18, cardboard
topper, courtesy of Mike Godown)
In
1923 Hires advertised “there are over 850 licensed bottlers thruout the
United States – warehouses and offices in most of the principal cities –
the Company’s products being on sale in over 250,000 dealers’ stores.”