Transcription:
#A sample of everything you always wanted to know about sampling.
From Ivers-Lee.
##A BIRDSEYE VIEW OF SAMPLING.
In 1928, Admiral Byrd made his first expedition to Antarctica. There, he set up a small camp called "Little America" to which he could retum on later trips.
Maybe he couldn't carry all his provisions. Or maybe he had an idea of what he was doing. But whatever the reason, the Admiral left a great deal of food behind.
Four years later, Byrd returned to Little America. And, to his amazement, the same
food supply was as fresh and tasty as it had been the day he left.News of Byrd's explorations awed the nation. But it took a man like Clarence Birdseye to realize that Admiral Byrd was discovering something vaster than even the South Pole.
He was discovering the frozen foods industry.
Needless to say.
Clarence's visions of frozen peas, corn and lima beans were not exactly warmly received. Especially considering his potential customers were the cautious, economy-minded Depression generation. Somehow, he had to convince them that frozen foods were not only safe to eat. But also good to eat. And that's where we finally come to the subject of this piece. It was nothing else but sampling that kept Birdseye® Frozen Foods sales from freezing over. And Clarence from going under.
The rest, of course, is history.
Alt text: Page has a tan background, in the middle of which is a circle. Artic mountains cut across the top half of the circle in light blue and extent to the sides of the page. Within the circle and infront of the mountains are penguins, a man in winter clothing holding a dog leash, and industrial buildings. In the foreground of the circle there is a portrait of a white man wearing a winter coat, with the fur around his head and pilots glasses on his forehead. In front of the portrait is an image of a plane facing towards the viewer. In front of the plane is a medallion with a bird on it. One on the bottom left side a black and white photograph shows a man bent over a camping stove and smoking. On the bottom right side there is an illustration of Birdseye frozen corn and peas packaging surrounding by loose corn and peas.
Comments: The grounding this advertisement in the historical origins of the company was really interesting to me as it read like a story and built a sense of trust, wonder, and innovation associated with the company. It is also notable that the company was not promoting the product itself in the text, but rather the impact that sampling has had on the company.
Emily Salameh
