Is it all a myth?

Mainstream advertising is filled with characters and personalities that have become part of a generation. However, have you ever stopped to consider whether these people actually exist?

The following looks at familiar faces that are seen regularly in food advertising and branding that are actually figments of the advertiser’s imagination.

1. Captain Birdseye

The Birds Eye company was founded in 1930 by Clarence Birdseye who had invented a process to flash freeze food whilst on a trip to Labrador, Newfoundland. This process allowed food to be preserved in a near-perfect condition. It wasn’t until 1967 that Captain Birdseye with his trademark white beard appeared. This advertising mascot, often mistaken as being the founder of Birdseye, was actually dreamed up by an advertising company to promote the products to a younger audience. John Hewer played this character from 1967 to 1998, even being briefly killed off in 1971 with a mock obituary that appeared in The Times. In 1993, he was named in a poll as the most recognisable captain on the planet after Captain Cook.

2. Sara Lee

Sara Lee or The Kitchens of Sara Lee was a chain of bakeries that started in Chicago in the fifties and specialised in frozen cheesecakes that could be easily transported all over America. The owner Charles Lubin, named the business after his eldest daughter and to this day, the real Sara Lee has never been near a cake tin and instead became a prominent philanthropist.

3. Uncle Ben’s

Parboiled rice was a process that was developed by Francis Heron Rogers, a British scientist and chemist. This process, which helped to retain more nutrients in the rice, is known as the Huzenlaub Process. Converted Rice Inc. based in Texas first marketed this product in 1943 before it was purchased by Mars Inc. in 1959. The image of Uncle Ben has been used on the packaging since 1947 and is said to be the portrait of a Chicago maître d’hôtel named Frank Brown.

4. Colonel Sanders

Harland David Sanders, the American businessman who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), was not a real Colonel at all. The title was bestowed on Harland by the state of Kentucky in 1950 as a mark of appreciation and for the next 20 years Colonel Sanders, as he became known, began to dress the part in public by wearing his trademark white suit and black string tie. Following his death in 1980, this character continues today at the forefront of KFC’s branding and advertising.

5. Quaker Oats

The Quaker Oats Company was founded in 1901 following a merger of four oat mills in the US. Although the brand revolves around the name and portrait of a Quaker Man created in 1957 by Haddon Sundblom, the brand actually has no connections with the Quakers. The name and image were chosen because they reflected the values of the Quaker faith which were honesty, integrity, purity and strength.

6. Mr Kipling

The Mr Kipling brand was introduced in 1967 to sell cakes of a baker’s standard to supermarkets. The brands namesake “Mr Kipling” never actually existed. The name originated from an Irish baker who lived in London known as Mr Seamus Kipling. Mr Kipling as a brand came to represent its well-known catch phrase introduced in 1976 which is “Exceedingly Good Cakes”