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Elsie
started out as one of four cows (Mrs. Blossom, Bessie and Clara
were her sidekicks) that appeared in a 1936 cartoon series
featured in medical journals, just
four friendly bovines chatting together in a pasture. The ads were
a big hit and doctors ordered reprints for their offices.
One day a radio
commercial writer penned a letter supposedly written by Elsie and
directed it to commentator Rush Hughes, who read it on the air.
The gimmick proved popular and additional letters were read in
subsequent broadcasts. |
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1939, Elsie was being featured in her own magazine ads and her
campaign was voted the best of the year by the Jury of the 1939
Annual Advertising Awards. With the World's Fair approaching,
Borden decided to feature a live Elsie in its exhibit, so company
executives looked at 150 cows before settling on a 7-year-old
named "You'll Do Lobelia."
The Brookfield, Mass.,
native was not only a beauty, she had a flair for drama. By the
end of that year, more than 7 million people had caught one of
Elsie's personal appearances.
After her smashing
success at the 1939 World's Fair, Elsie went on to book even
tonier events. She headlined a Bovine Ball at the Seventh Regiment
Armory, hosted a private dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel for members
of the press, and even appeared in a four-poster bed at the
exhibit at the World's Fair in 1940. Her next stop was Hollywood,
where she went on to star as Buttercup in the film "Little
Men."
After a brief stretch
out to pasture in the late 1960s, Elsie was resurrected as the
Borden symbol. Today the picture of the dew-eyed cow with the
sweet face and the daisy necklace continues to "moo-ve"
consumers across America.
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