Marius Rossillon (1867-1946) created the rotund Michelin brand character, Bibendum in 1898, the same year that the French tyre manufacturer began selling its products in the USA. Rossillon was a professional cartoonist who signed his work with the pseudonym O’Galop. In 1911, O’Galop’s images of Bibendum would famously adorn the London HQ of Michelin, rendered in stained glass. These examples of advertising to an American audience come from 1920 by which time Bibendum had become more animated - more jovial, less sinister, no longer a deflated armadillo. We are introduced to Bibendum as a man of the people, wrapping a protective arm around a snappily dressed customer, towering over a roadside billboard with a cigar between his lips or gazing benignly from on high as vehicles queue outside a Michelin workshop. Elsewhere the product occupies centre stage while Bibendum, in miniature form, does a lot of gesturing and pointing. The overriding priority was that the public should accept Bibendum as an all-American and never mistake him for a cheese-eating surrender-monkey. All Michelin advertising in 1920s America was produced in-house by locally recruited advertising managers. Some vintage postcards follow. First is Bibendum en Famille on parade at the Nice Carnival followed by a view of the original Michelin factory in Clermont-Ferrand. After this is a hand-drawn card showing Bibendum en avion, taking part in an aerial targeting contest organised by the Michelin company in 1911 to support a campaign to prepare for future conflict. Last is a card and pamphlet featuring Michelin’s attempt to enter the railway market in 1933 with a diesel powered railcar that ran on rubber tyres.
Follow this link for a 2008 post about the splendid Michelin Building in London’s Fulham Road.
