This was a very enlightening take on the problems people faced back in the Great Depression, when every way you turned, you ran into a dead end, or blank wall.
This was a product that was completely unknown, and for which there was absolutely no market, and nobody had any money to buy anything, anyway.
But one man dreamed up not only the product, but also a way to advertise it, so that it was about as cheap to advertise as was possible to imagine, which also educated the public about the product, and commanded much more of their attention in the ad than other, more conventional methods.
The product was a brushless shaving cream, which people knew absolutely nothing about.
All they knew was a mug, with a round chunk of soap at the bottom, which you had to wet and stir up with a shaving brush, which stayed permanently in the shaving mug.
He devised a series of five roadside signs, each with a few words of a pithy little rhyme or catchy saying, but always ending with the name of the product... Burma-Shave.
It had all the possibilities one could want: It was inexpensive, and yet every male in the country was a potential customer.
And, once one was introduced to the product, and actually bought it and used it, it was a repeat product, used on a daily, ongoing basis.
What made it so interesting was the variety of the sayings, or rhymes, which became a challenge to constantly think up new ones.
This was all back in the day when the world was much simpler, and much more slow-paced, and people were more trusting, and not so jaded and sophisticated, as they ultimately became.
Every single saying, or jingle - 600 of them - are listed, from the first to the last, and it's truly a trip down memory lane.
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