Model T - No Bumpers

The bumper sticker could not predate the invention of the motor car but, if you know that the Model T Ford was the first car to be mass manufactured and therefore it must have been the first car to have had bumper stickers slapped on it, you’d be wrong!

The Model T Ford had no bumpers!

Model A - With Bumpers

The first car to be adorned with bumper stickers was a Ford, the Model A which was introduced in 1927 and sometime between that date and the onset of the Second World War, someone cooked up the idea of the “bumper sticker”. Who this someone was is the subject of speculation and urban legend, though many ascribe the invention to a Kansas City entrepreneur, Forest Gill.

Gill was a printer and had formed his print company using his basement back in 1934. As the clouds of war started to loom, patriotic fever took hold and Forest came up with Gill-line, whereby bumper stickers, usually of the flag or a patriotic slogan, were held to the car bumper by means of wire. You simply twisted the wire to hold the slogan in place and untwisted to remove it when needed. Gill realized that a printed slogan with adhesive backing would do the job much more conveniently and switched to what we would recognize as a modern day bumper sticker.

After the war, with millions of people returning to normal civilian life, there was a spate of elections and political activity. Politicians soon grasped the marketing potential of the bumper sticker to get their campaign message across or simply their name, usually with a ballot box tick next to their name.

None of us would have any difficulty in recognizing these types of bumper stickers and for once, politicians had stolen a march on private companies looking to promote their own products. This quickly followed with a wide range of goods and brands being advertised on bumper stickers and the concept of a “viral” marketing campaign became established as a consequence. The idea behind a viral marketing campaign is to give something away which helps you to promote your brand but which not only the consumer who has the item, i.e. the bumper sticker, but also encourages and motivates their friends, family and connections to do the same – in fact anyone that sees one!

This brings us neatly to the Sixties and the free-love generation with hippies, anti-war protests and a time of civil and social turmoil in the country. The bumper sticker enjoyed a resurgence and renaissance in terms of use and the art and humor which went into their creation. Bumper stickers also became a whole lot more daring and risqué in terms of both imagery and language used, but it was both sides of the political, social and cultural divide which stretched the boundaries.

There is something to be sad about with the state of the bumper sticker today; there is something refreshing about reading “Better 2 Feet in NATO than a Cold Ass in Siberia” compared to “My Kid is an Honor Roll Student” . Not saying you have to agree with what a bumper sticker says, but there is no reason not to enjoy a smile at their expense!

Mark Trumper

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Bumper stickers have been around almost as long as the automobile – it seems that people just can’t resist adorning their car with something humorous or a personal statement.  It seems that when Henry Ford said customers can have the Model T Ford in any color, as long as it was black, that customers took it upon themselves to take matters into their own hands – after all, the customer is always right!

Bumper stickers started life as an identifier – usually telling other motorists where the car was from – but rapidly was adopted by marketing men in the 1950′s and shortly thereafter, by the hopeful candidates in political elections.  As the 1960′s came and went, bumper stickers have become ever more humorous, more visible and much more popular as a sign of individuality, demeanor and driver personality.

Forget the internet with Facebook and MySpace which lure advertisers with the prospect of millions of eyeballs looking at their web pages – just think of how many more eyeballs are focused on the bumpers of cars every single day!

“Your message here” is very true when you consider how popular bumper stickers are, but just as with social media and internet marketing, there is one attribute you should be looking to emulate – the viral campaign.

Viral marketing seeks to get individuals to take part in a campaign but at the same time, the campaign is designed to encourage or require that other members of their circle of contacts (family, friends, work colleagues) are introduced and in turn, they participate too – one person introduces 5 more, they all introduce 5 more and so and so on.

Bumper stickers can also be used in this way, but they have to be engaging and it also helps if there is something unique about the bumper sticker which makes it a sought after item.  In turn, this allows you as the marketer, to leverage the desirability of the bumper sticker to engage potential customers directly in return for which, they get the opportunity to market your company or product on their car bumper!

Designing a bumper sticker for marketing purposes requires good design skills and a good insight into the minds of potential customers; marketing appeal must be subliminal as you are looking to latch onto an existing social trend and are in effect, gatecrashing someone’s private party.   An example would be where you design a bumper sticker providing a rendition of the flag or name of the state or town you are operating in; this forms the center focus of the bumper sticker but within the design your company and product are incorporated.  Use words such as “Limited Edition” to enhance the impression of exclusivity, and use the sticking backer to provide instructions on how a consumer can get more, e.g. by visiting a website and completing a survey.

Bumper stickers are long lasting pieces of marketing collateral, usually lasting as long as the car itself is on the road.  Bumper stickers are a small, moving billboard which you don’t have to pay for and over the life of the bumper sticker, it will be seen and read by hundreds of thousands of people, and even better, read repeatedly by a significant minority.

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