that little voice

“Brylcreem, a little dab will do you.”

Do you remember this commercial song from the 30s and 40s?

I do, and when I began to sing it this week, it made me think about all those products we grew up reading about, hearing about, and seeing in our homes.

For instance, Lava soap. I haven’t seen that brand in forever, but it was a stable in newspaper office bathrooms for removing printers’ ink. It was gritty but could remove the embedded black grime common on the hands of pressmen.

In the 30s, it seemed advertising focused on cigarettes: Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes, Craven A (I never heard of that one), Camels, and cars. In looking back at ads of that period Ford seemed to advertise more, but Chevrolet ads were breaking into newspapers. By the 1940s Hudsons, Packards and Studebakers appeared in slick print ads.

I remember the first Hudson sedan I ever saw, up close. It had a unique design, unlike the boxy look of most cars of that era, and it had running boards! I had never seen such a thing, and when I opened the door the smell of ‘new’ was an aroma I still seek in a ‘just from the factory’ vehicle.

One of the most consistent advertisers in those pre-war and post-war days was Coca-Cola, still a major presence in all types of media. No wonder they continue to be a bigger seller around the world.

Candy ads made the airways and print world big time in the 40s, Baby Ruths, Nestle, Mars, LifeSavers, Whitman’s. They all may have been available before World War II, but it wasn’t until restrictions on many items were lifted that confections began a renewed surge in popularity.

Of course, cigarettes continued to be ever present in and on media outlets, and lasted until the 1980s when a decline in sales began a trend downward continuing today.

If you are near my age, you may remember women’s hosiery with a seam running down the back of the hose. This was before panty hose made an appearance in our society, so garter belts were used to keep the hose secured, and those seams in a straight line. Some women were known to draw a brown or black line on the backs of their legs in place of wearing hose. Or was that just teenage girls in small Texas towns?

What all this shows is how influential advertising is in our lives, how our tastes change, and how new products are introduced to replace those old favorites.

“Brylcreem, a little dab will do you, Brylcreem, a little dab will do,” keeps ringing in my head.