Kilmer House

How did the rise of the automobile and the space constraints of an electric sign lead to one of the best-known advertising campaigns in Johnson & Johnson history?   And why did Prohibition cause the Company to change it?

The rise of the automobile in the early part of the 20th century had a huge impact on American society.  With the advent of mass-produced, affordable cars, people suddenly had much greater mobility.  This enabled families to travel far beyond their local corner drugstores to shop for medicines, personal care items and other supplies.

L. & W. De Martini Drugstore, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1917

Druggists, the backbone of the Company’s retail trade, started feeling the pinch of reduced customer traffic and sales.  Sensing an opportunity, Johnson & Johnson created a slogan, “Your Druggist is More Than a Merchant,” and made it the theme of a national advertising campaign in 1920.  The campaign highlighted the corner druggist’s scientific knowledge and pharmaceutical expertise.  It also subtly reminded people that the proprietor of the local corner drugstore wasn’t just an anonymous merchant:  he had scientific expertise and he knew his customers and their families well because they were his neighbors.

Scientific Director Fred Kilmer (a former retail pharmacist) felt that retail drugstores were more than just commercial enterprises.  According to Kilmer, retail pharmacists were scientifically trained professionals guarding the health of the community, and the Company’s advertising campaign reflected this.

The Enormous Johnson & Johnson Sign, Under Construction

Johnson & Johnson had constructed a huge electric sign in New Brunswick, measuring 115 feet long and over 31 feet high, on the roof of one of its buildings.  The sign could be seen by the hundreds of thousands of passengers on the Pennsylvania Railroad as it passed through New Brunswick, and it served as a landmark.  It was impossible to miss, especially when it was all lit up at night.

According to Fred Kilmer, the most famous part of the advertising campaign — the slogan — started because of the sign.  The Company wanted something that would pay tribute to retail pharmacists…but it had to be brief enough to fit on the sign.  Here’s what Kilmer said:

“In our magazine advertising we can – and we do – pay tribute to the druggist at length.  But a few words is all the sign will carry and all the people can read from the car windows in these days of fast travel.  We wanted an easily remembered sentence that would sum up the advantages of dealing with the druggist.  And this is the message we flashed:  ‘YOUR DRUGGIST IS MORE THAN A MERCHANT.’”  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol XIII, No. 1, 1920, p. 227]

The sign, lit up to advertise Baby Powder.  A description states that the lettering was white, the crosses were red, and the border was yellow.

“Your Druggist is More than a Merchant” was a smashing success and it was soon picked up by retail druggists across the U.S. who started using it in their own advertising.  It grew more and more popular with each subsequent advertising campaign.

Everything was going just fine until a respected pharmaceutical journal suddenly refused to carry the ad.  According to the editor, the slogan “Your Druggist is More than a Merchant” was an incomplete thought…and too many people were completing it by adding their own ending:  “He is a Bootlegger.”  (This was during Prohibition in the 1920s, and bootlegging was of course illegal….and popular.)

So the Company’s advertising department quickly came up with its own ending:  “Your Druggist is More Than a Merchant.  Try the Drug Store First.”

That solved the problem.  Publications ran the new ads, and the new slogan went on to achieve even greater success.  Pharmacy associations across the United States adopted it as their official slogan, and druggists used it on banners in parades and in “truth” campaigns.  In England, it was adapted to become “Your Chemist is More than a Merchant,” and it was translated into French in Canada.  The campaign worked wonders for drugstore sales – including sales of Johnson & Johnson products – which started to soar again.   Fred Kilmer estimated that the slogan appeared over one billion times in advertising and promotions…not bad for what Kilmer referred to as “an easily remembered sentence that tells a big story.”  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol. XIII, No. 6, 1921, p. 379] 

UPDATE:  a computer-savvy reader colorized the sign picture, based on the description above.  The sign must’ve been truly eye-catching in person.  Here’s the colorized version:

Hmmm…it seems Kilmer House is back to the water theme this week.  So, here goes:

How did a serious water shortage in the Nineteen-teens end up benefiting the residents of New Brunswick?  And what did Johnson & Johnson have to do with that?

In the Nineteen-teens, the City of New Brunswick faced a problem.  The city got its water supply from a local brook, and the brook was going dry.  The only other water source nearby – the river — was too muddy to use without treating the water first….and anyway, it would take too much time to build a filtration plant to do any good in the face of an immediate shortage.  But there already was a city resident with its own water treatment plant, and New Brunswick turned to that resident for help.  Who was that resident?  It was Johnson & Johnson.  

I recently spoke with a reader of this blog whose father worked as a salesman for Johnson & Johnson in the early 1920s. He told me that his father was one of the first people to demonstrate a new invention to doctors…the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage.

First BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage Package, 1921

Today we take BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages for granted, but before the invention of the product in 1920 by Earle Dickson, a young Company employee, there were no ready made adhesive bandages. People needing a small bandage had to make one themselves, and they were often too cumbersome to be easily applied by one person. Most people just used what they had in the house, which many times meant tying a piece of rag around the cut. Earle took two Johnson & Johnson products – adhesive tape and gauze – and combined them to make the first adhesive bandage to help his wife Josephine, who was constantly cutting or burning her fingers in the kitchen. Earle showed the folks at work what he invented. They loved it, and a new product was born.

Earle Dickson, Inventor of the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage, in later years. Earle became a member of the Board of Directors and a Vice President.

The first BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were just as Earle had invented them – a long strip of adhesive tape 18 inches long and 2 ½ inches wide, with an inch-wide strip of gauze down the middle, covered in crinoline fabric to protect it and keep it clean. BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were not made by machine and pre-cut until 1924. You would just cut off the width you needed, depending on the size of the cut or scrape you wanted to cover, peel off the fabric backing, and stick it on.

Step #1

Step #2

Step #3

Naturally, this needed demonstrating, which is where the salesmen (or travelers, as they were called in those days) came in. They showed the newfangled adhesive bandages to doctors, butchers (who apparently cut themselves a lot) and retail pharmacists. A Johnson & Johnson traveler would come in with his BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages and a pair of scissors, and demonstrate how the product should be used.

A Company Salesman, or Traveler, circa 1921

What did they say? It probably sounded a lot like a 1921 article in THE RED CROSS MESSENGER about the new product:

“Suppose you have a cut on your finger. Cut a piece of Band-Aid from the strip, pull off the face-cloth and put the bandage over the wound. That’s all there is to it. The bandage will stay right where you place it without tying. Can you imagine anything handier for the household or shop?” [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vo. XIII, No. 6, 1921, p. 378]

The article, written to educate the retail druggists who sold the Company’s products, went on to state that the useful new product could be “applied instantly to the numerous cuts received by children at play and to the ordinary injuries incident to household or any mechanical work,” as well as holding other dressings in place, applying lotions, protecting blisters and more. Although the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage had a slow start, it caught on and became one of the Company’s best-known products, due in part to the persistence of salesmen like the reader’s father.

By the way, this site has some great pictures of classic BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage tins through the years, including some very old ones.