In 1914 the Morton Salt company coined the phrase, “When it rains it pours,” and used a drawing of a cute girl walking with her umbrella as the rain was coming down. That slogan and the little girl helped sell tons of salt. Perhaps that line drawing was an early glamour, commercial conception, using a young female to sell a product.
The salt company new that with time comes change, so in 1921 with the roaring twenties, Morton put a “dance” in her step. The next change to the “Umbrella Girl,” as came to be known, was in 1933 post-Depression years when “jazz was king.” One of the more noticeable differences was the ribbon in her hair and in 1941, the ribbons were taken out and ponytails were added with the Umbrella Girl taking on a bolder yellow dress and her hair became golden goldilocks. Her hemline also came up an inch or two and there became an almost low-neck-cut appearance in her short dress. Morton states, “While our boys were off to war, our little girl was serving at home.”
The next change of our golden girl came in 1956 during the rock and roll era, with a more modern dress and the umbrella would go from the dark blue Morton Salt pantone color to white on the inside and yellow on the back side. The final change for our girl came in 1968, her hemline up even higher and now the white and yellow umbrella became a pale blue with white on top and goldilocks now sported her hair down, short and parted on the side.
You’re probably wondering what does this have to do with photography, real simple, “Technology changes every Monday when the Board of Directors meet,” and if you’re not on top of these changes, you’ll be left behind–remember, white-balance came with digital, we didn’t have RAW and white-balance with film. In fact, we scanned our film in Adobe Photoshop before we ever did a RAW conversion.
It’s funny how a salt company who developed its slogan from an old proverb, “It never rains but it pours,” would be so successful with the help of a little girl walking in the rain. One reason, they kept her up-to-date and fresh! Thanks, rg sends!
