- I think logos within businesses isn't anything new
a logo with a Amazon as the A to Z with a smile.
You know, A to Z in the beginning.
Toyota has every letter of their name
in their actual logo.
You can see it, okay.
Continental hides a tire
and the Bronx zoo has New York city skyline
as the negative space in between the giraffes legs
which by the way, if you haven't seen
a baby giraffe before it is the most adorable thing
in the world, I want one very badly, okay.
How neat is that?
But there's another logo or icon or mascot, all right,
in the automotive scene that nearly everyone knows of,
but doesn't know why, all right.
I'm Alex, Alex.fi at Instagram.
In today's episode of,
we're figuring out a series name, all right.
I just hope you enjoy the intro
which you're about to watch.
We're going to be talking about how that
thick looking glazer eatin' Michelin Man
actually came to be.
(upbeat music)
I'm really excited.
And if you're just jumping into this video,
hello, don't forget to subscribe
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Taking us back like the eyewitness opening
the Michelin Man has quite the history
and it technically did a great job
at being a mascot because it's one
of the few things that are actually still alive.
Even after over 120 years.
At the core, okay.
The aim of a logo or icon like this
is to increase brand recognition
and make it immediately recognizable to people like you
and people like me.
Now look at him,
tell me that ain't true,
but the start of this icon was conceptualized
nearly half a decade before the design
even hit the parchment.
Edouard and Andre, I'm going to say it wrong
because I got a Wisconsin accent,
of Claremont-Ferrand, the then brothers Michelin,
were attending the Lyon universal exposition in 1894
and noticed a pile bicycle tires
that resembled somewhat of a human.
Not kidding.
This is true, all right.
According to the history book,
Edouard said to his brother, "With arms and legs
it would make a man."
Brother, brother, hey brother, brother, look.
I'm assuming that's how it is
because I don't know any conversation
between two brothers that would have been that short.
The initial conversation though, is what led the brothers
to having its first conception of the mascot in 1898
by a man named O'Galop,
the alias of Marius Rossillon, okay.
To start, O'Galop used old design works
that were initially rejected
to present the idea of the Michelin mascot
using a previous Munich brewery poster to start.
It had a King standing and making a toast, all right.
But instead of a king, it was the Michelin Man
and oddly large wide character that was
a literally stack of tires with two eyes and a mouth.
The poster would then be labeled "Nunc est Bibendum!"
Now is the time for drinking.
That's what it,
that's what it meant,
except it was Michelin Man.
It wasn't a drunk king or anything like that.
It from an ode from the Roman lyric
poet Horace of 25 BCE.
We are going all the way back.
The poster would then carry on to say, "A Votre Sante
le pneu Michelin boit
l'obstacle."
Which roughly translates to, "That is to say here
to your health, the Michelin tire drinks up obstacles."
And instead of beer, the character would be
holding road hazards,
common to the French roads at the time.
It was actually a pretty neat poster.
And it was also a little bit scary.
Surrounded by it's competition
the poster actually made quite the waves
and didn't shy away from controversy.
It was a good marketing ploy
especially in the late 1800's
when Michelin was trying to drive additional demand
for tires of all kinds.
This singular poster would be used
for over 15 years and posted anywhere
it possibly could be to begin building
the brand recognition of Michelin
because back then tires weren't as needed as they were now.
And that's, I mean, just think about it.
Technical information, genie of mobility,
Michelin guides, all of it
wherever Michelin was the Michelin tire mascot was there
and it added on to the brand
of what Michelin wanted to be.
But once they decided to move forward,
the logo, the mascot, the guy,
the poofy guy, all right, they did have to name it.
How do you name a pile of tires that looks a little bit
like the antagonist from a Marvel comic.
It's kind of an important thing to do
but it's like owning a dog
and then calling it D O G,
you just don't do that, right?
You gotta have a name.
People say the idea came from two different sources.
One of which, and it's probably more likely,
would be when Michelin commissioned a man,
pen name Curnonsky, or Maurice Edmond to actually
write about Bibendum in a newspaper column, all right.
And that was ultimately what came to be the name
of the Michelin Man.
In 1922, Michelin then ran a contest
to name the character in the United States.
Both of these stories are boring, but likely more factual.
Alright, welcome to history.
That's just, that's usually how it goes.
This isn't an LA movie.
This is just me telling you what happened.
However, word on the proverbial street
at the time was that the Michelin brothers
had already determined the name to be Bibendum
or Bibendum back in 1898 or 1899
when Leon Thery, a racer who's taking place
in the Paris, Amsterdam Paris race yelled to Andre
at the end of the race, "Voila Bibendum, vive Bibendum."
That, that story is a movie, all right,
which ultimately stuck with the brothers
to name the character Bibendum.
Once the Michelin Man was launched
the Man was very specifically targeting
a wealthy group of people.
We're going to avoid saying the B word anymore
because I just can't do it anymore.
The logo would tout cigars,
be drinking champagne and telling the world
it eats up road hazards, all right.
It was a pretty classy and upscale person,
big mascot to be doing that.
And during that time, it worked great
because automobiles catered to the wealthy back then.
But Michelin wouldn't keep the brand design very long.
The old, the upscale, the classy version
as the times would inevitably change.
And when the time did change, so did the figurehead.
As Michelin entered the international sales
it would get rid of the old monocle looking eyeglass
and the cigar so the brand could be seen as
more of a normal tire company
versus a company for only the elite.
The cuff links, the signet ring and other class accessories
on the mascot of the Michelin Man
would ultimately disappear as we got into
the mid 20th century and the design of Bibendum,
Bibendum, of the Michelin Man would remain white
even with the introduction of carbon black preservatives
for tires to keep their heritage to the 19th century design
and perceived aging of the company.
Remember, its goal was to look
like it's been established forever,
even though, guess what,
spoiler alert, it hadn't, all right.
As the decades passed, variations
of the Michelin Man continued to be showcased
in the world to allow people to
associate this very round man
as the Michelin character ever evolving
the actual design of this logo into what
the market needed to see at the time.
Michelin Man would stay around
for as long as you could possibly imagine.
And even though it entered into different areas
in the 20th century
it always had something that kept it grounded
to the area that it was being introduced in.
And the adjustments of what they did
to the Michelin Man over the course of every
every year, pretty much in every
different region is what allowed to keep
Michelin relevant with the mascot.
You have to remember, like we're talking
over 150 years ago.
In 1905, the Michelin Man had a helmet
and carried a shield to illustrate them
conquering their new London sales office.
in 1907 it was a giant for the factory launch
in Middletown, New Jersey to show how stoic
and strong and big Michelin could be perceived as
in the United States.
In the 1910s he became a teacher
for all illustrations surrounding
called Michelin Monday's, okay.
In France, the mascot became dynamic
to the artists of the time, because guess what?
You couldn't really be an artist back then at a company.
It just wasn't real.
For certain locations though, Bibendum
or the Michelin Man will be dressed
as whatever it needed to be in the years.
And the places that it was introduced in.
And as the years progressed the design element
became the Michelin Man constantly just running.
'Cause it was up until the 21st century
that the Michelin Man was slowed down
the future in illustrations here in the United States
and softened the look of the character
to what we now know him to look at.
He's really scary in the past though, okay.
Like if you look at some of the old black and white
like flip book, it was a scary man, okay.
But the Michelin Man who was in popular cultures
and comic books, guest appearances,
animated shorts, and more okay.
The Michelin Man himself has edged in and out
of the company's history, depending on when it needed to be.
But it was always a back pocket pick for the company.
Nowadays he's a little less scary,
not a little monstrous,
doesn't look like the guy from Ghostbusters.
I actually got nightmares when I watched Ghostbusters
when I was a kid.
Nowadays though he's a little bit more normal.
He protects you from the rain in the commercials.
And he's always got a smiley face.
Instead of being a drunk Santa Claus,
he's more like a holly jolly Santa Claus
without the red cheeks.
He's just poof, ah.
So while the face is well known these days
to be directly associated with Michelin,
the near 122 year old figure
was something that is likely one of Michelin's greatest,
honestly greatest success stories
from a marketing perspective.
It's one of the best things that they could have done.
The Michelin Man went from a literal stack of tires
to a poster, to a finger head in the company's branding
in under a decade.
It follows the company as it entered international sales
used it for branding it's propositions.
Okay, and adjusted what it looked like as it got older
and ultimately ended up winning
the best brand icon of all time.
It won icon of the millennium by advertising elite.
The secret behind the Michelin Man icon
is one that is nothing more than consistency,
dedication and a craft around a design that
not many other companies would probably had to this day.
It's just not something that we know and hold dear to us.
In the days of just consistent rapid intake
to see something like this stay around for so long
is pretty unheard of.
It's not something many other companies could ever copy
and keep doing for so long.
The character was emotive.
It was relevant yet distinctive in its own way.
And while the 21st century is getting awfully used
to changing the design elements
of a brand pretty much every single quarter,
this 122 year old logo is one that absolutely
has no plans of going away.
But Hey, all right.
Did you know that?
All right, let us know in the comments section below
if you want us to dive another secret,
besides the code of secret obsession with taco dingdong
let us know below.
And if you're looking for after market wheels,
tires or suspension be sure to hit us up
over at fitmentindustries.com.
Let us know what you want us to talk about next.
And no, I don't want the comments to be my will to live.
Okay, I care about you.
Build a car, have fun, smile, have some sugar.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
We'll see you later.
Peace.