After WWII, the proliferation of wartime newsreels, photos, and Hollywood movies exposed children to more realistic images of the world, and created a preference for greater realism in toys. Therefore, toys which replicated real vehicles with accurate details and color schemes, and trucks with actual company names and logos became increasingly popular. This taste for toys which reflected things children saw in the real world (like where their parents filled up the family car with gas) fared well for oil and gas companies looking to ingrain their brand into the psyche of everyday Americans. Some of these advertising products came in the form of simple plastic novelty giveaways, while others were more elaborately produced toys sold by toy companies such as Marx, Buddy L, and many other American, British, and Japanese toymakers. See the gallery below for a number of examples, and check out these videos to see a few in action!
SOURCES:
O’Brian, Richard. 1990. The Story of American Toys. New York, NY: Abbeville.
Sarver Coombs, Danielle & Bob Batchelor. 2014. We Are What We Sell: How Advertising Shapes American Life. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
