Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. In 1954, General Mills introduced the red spoon logo with her signature, placing it on Gold Medal flour, Bisquick, and cake-mix packages.[1] A portrait of Betty Crocker appears on printed advertisements, product packaging, and cookbooks.
The character was developed in 1921 following a unique Gold Medal Flour promotion featured in the Saturday Evening Post. The ad asked consumers to complete a jigsaw puzzle and mail it to the then Washburn-Crosby Company, later General Mills, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In return, they would receive a pincushion shaped like a bag of flour. Along with 30,000 completed puzzles came several hundred letters with cooking-related questions.
Realizing that especially housewives would want advice from a fellow woman, the company’s Advertising Department convinced its board of directors to create a personality that the women answering the letters could all use in their replies. The name Betty was selected because it was viewed as a cheery, all-American name. It was paired with the last name Crocker, in honor of William Crocker, a Washburn Crosby Company director.[2]
The portrait of Betty Crocker was first commissioned in 1936. It has been updated seven times since her creation, reflecting changes in fashion and hairstyles.[3]
Described as an American cultural icon, the image of Betty Crocker has endured several generations, adapting to changing social, political, and economic currents.[4][5] Apart from advertising campaigns in printed, broadcast and digital media, she received several cultural references in film, literature, music and comics.
^Hunt, Kevin (October 20, 2021). "How Betty Crocker Got Its Start". General Mills. Retrieved 8 May 2022.
^"The Story of Betty Crocker". Betty Crocker. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
^Cross, Mary (2002). A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture. Greenwood Press. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-0313314810. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
^Adema, Pauline (2006). Dennis Hall; Susan G. Hall (eds.). American Icons: An Encyclopedia of the People, Places, and Things that Have Shaped Our Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 73–. ISBN 978-0-313-02767-3.
^Patrick, Jeanette (2017), Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker: American Cultural Icons that Never Existed, National Women's History Museum
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