OP-ED: Remembering the giveaways of yesteryear
Recently, I watched a video describing things from the past that have disappeared from everyday life. It included headlight dimmer switches on the floor of the car, wall-mounted can openers, breadboxes, television rabbit ears, curb feelers, and hand-cranked pencil sharpeners that could chew up a No. 2 pencil like a wood chipper.
As one memory led to another, I remembered giveaways.
In the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, nobody expected a buyer to do business with them just because they were competent. They bribed you.
My father-in-law accumulated multiple sets of dishes from Mellon Bank. Every time he deposited money from his business, they gave him another dish. He eventually had enough place settings to serve everyone at the Ukrainian Club’s annual pierogi dinner.
Gas stations gave away drinking glasses. Before Exxon, Esso gave motorists fake tiger tails to hang out of their gas caps. Their slogan was “Put a Tiger in Your Tank.” Today, that would set off a warning sensor that would cost $400.
Back then, an attendant pumped your gas, checked your oil, and washed your windshield in a uniform. Today? It’s pump your own at $4.50 a gallon while the gas pump speaker yells about hoagies and Slim Jims.
J. Edward Connelly led this golden age of promotional encouragement.
When I was president of Laurel Highlands Tourism, I visited Connelly in his Pittsburgh office. He created the Gateway Clipper Fleet, but before riverboats, he built his empire on toasters, cookware, dishes, and anything else that might convince people to do business with one of his clients.
Connelly was a large, white-haired man. He had been a Golden Gloves boxer, and he carried himself like someone who took no prisoners.
He greeted me and then immediately excused himself, turned around, and went through a door behind his desk.
There I sat.
Waiting.
I wondered whether this was a negotiating technique. I thought maybe he was establishing dominance by making me wait while he conducted urgent business in his other office. Then I heard the flush.
Eventually, he returned, and the meeting continued as if nothing unusual had happened. When you are among the 400 wealthiest Americans of 1985, nobody asks whether you washed your hands.
Connelly formed J. Edward Connelly Associates in the early 1950s and became a pioneer of incentive marketing. His theory was simple: Give people something attractive and apparently free, and they will open an account, shop at your store, or drive out of their way for the last of eight matching cereal bowls.
Businesses offered his toasters, clocks, blankets, silverware, and cookware. Grocery stores did, too. Our local A&P offered similar coordinated dishes one piece at a time, too. My folks went back every week to get a piece of that blue and white stoneware. My kids still have them.
Fortune reportedly called Connelly the godfather of deposit-and-get-a-toaster banking. His promotions became so successful that merchants complained and the United States Senate held hearings. Congress was investigating free toasters. Today, they don’t even investigate half-billion-dollar flying gifts.
After Pittsburgh began cleaning up its rivers, Connelly purchased and launched the Gateway Clipper. More boats followed, including more Clippers, a Party Liner and the Good Ship Lollipop. Over the years, his fleet included over 25 vessels.
He also became a riverboat casino pioneer and a major Catholic benefactor to the Vatican residence used during papal conclaves. He even obtained rights to market reproductions of Vatican artwork. The man had gone from dishes to riverboats to the Vatican. What a wild ride.
J. Edward Connelly was a Pittsburgh original: coal miner, boxer, salesman, millionaire, riverboat owner, and champion giver-away of things people always needed.
He proved that you could build an empire with nerve, imagination, and a warehouse full of toasters, and Pittsburgh benefited from his entrepreneurship.