Nunc est bibendum!
Michelin1898
Nunc est bibendum! is an 1898 lithographic poster for Michelin.
Why it works
The birth of a mascot still working more than a century later. The cartoonist O'Galop (Marius Rossillon) had a design rejected by a Munich brewery: a portly drinker toasting with Horace's line "Nunc est bibendum", now is the time to drink. According to company lore, André Michelin remembered his brother Édouard seeing a man in a stack of tyres at the 1894 Lyon exhibition, and had the drinker rebuilt out of tyres. The new figure looms over his deflated rivals and raises a goblet of nails and broken glass because, as the caption explains, the Michelin tyre "drinks up obstacles". It is studied as a lesson in turning a technical claim into a character: one absurd, memorable image carries the whole product promise. That summer a racing driver reportedly hailed André as "Bibendum", borrowing the poster's Latin, and the name stuck; by 1906 Clemenceau was borrowing the line, announcing that like the well-known tyre he drank up obstacles. Michelin has kept the character, much slimmed down, ever since.
Techniques
- Mascots and characters A portly figure built from tyres becomes the brand's enduring character, kept, much slimmed down, for more than a century.
- Visual metaphor Raising a goblet of nails and broken glass over deflated rivals, the figure built from tyres pictures the claim that the tyre drinks up obstacles.
Sources · 4
Updated
