Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Uneeda Biscuit Boy #1


Another fabulous marketing marvel from the folks at Nabisco. Just where did the Biscuit Boy come from? The Uneeda Biscuit was the first use of the In-Er Seal packaging. The In-Er Seal package was a combination of waxed paper and cardboard, guaranteed to get mom's biscuit and cracker purchases home to her even in a driving rainstorm. Before Uneeda Biscuit was introduced by National Biscuit Company in 1898, crackers (and biscuits) were sold unbranded and packed loosely in barrels. Mothers would give their sons a paper bag and ask them to run down to the store and get the bag filled with crackers. National Biscuit Company used this as part of their Uneeda Biscuit advertising symbol which depicts a boy carrying a pack of Uneeda Biscuits in the rain. In 2009 (after over 110 years) Nabisco discontinued the Uneeda biscuit out of concern that the product was not as profitable as other product lines. What a shame. After discovering all there is to know about Uneeda, Ineeda Biscuit. Uneeda was also one of the first product names that used a compound, made up word.

This paper is once again a piece that came from the only biscuit factory in town, and the building, or at least the first two stories, still stands.

6 comments:

  1. great detail in the drawing...and i like you left it soft to shadow the writing beneath

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  2. I like your work of paper art.

    I read your story and can tell you that I used to walk to the grocery store to get something or to trade a dozen of our eggs to the Mr. Boyer for something -- perhaps a piece of cheese of equal value. And on the way in the store by the counter where you pay for what you bought, would be a box setting on the floor, with or without a lid. In the box would be cookies or sometimes just unsalted crackers. They were sold that way. You reached your hand in and got a handful while Mr. Boyer held a paper sack to drop them in. It would be your germs that got on your cookies that you dropped in your sack. And sometimes, Mr. Boyer had to reach in and get some and he might have just cut meat and ground it into hamburger. But we all survived and some lived to a ripe old age. Your post brings back a lot of memories.

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  3. This is such a neat posting, Dave! I love what you do with your art - you just bring the past alive all over again! (The document, itself, of course, was the bit that brought it alive to begin with...).

    I'm off to check on Ephemera and thanks for the posting tips, re: mail art.

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  4. Nice work, Dave. Ineeda biscuit, too.

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  5. Love the pic, boy that one brings back memories. We also had those biscuits here as well, but the company was called 'Nabisco' here in Oz.

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