Bumper stickers have been around almost as long as cars have – it is a popular myth that they adorned the very first car, the Model T Ford, except this is very wrong. The simple reason is that the Model-T didn’t have any bumpers for anything to stick to in the first instance!

Stickers first had a stage with the appearance in 1927 with the Ford Model-A – that car did have bumpers, but it took almost 10 years before anyone started thinking of slapping a sticker on them. Urban legend has it that a Kansas City entrepreneur named Forest Gill came up with the notion of a bumper sticker in 1934. Gill had formed a print shop operating from a basement and he was looking at ways to advertise his own business and drum up some innovative products for his business to offer clients.

Stickers took off rapidly after they were introduced, with many of them being fixed to bumpers with wire in order not to spoil the chrome, but also because they were used widely as marketing tools. Milk and beer distributors used the wire bumper plates widely and interchanged them on their carts and delivery vehicles which only need the wire to be untwisted and refixed as needed. Nevertheless, Gill saw that adhesive stickers were a better proposition for distribution to members of the public because once the message was on there, that bumper sticker would usually broadcast the promotional message for the life of the car itself. He was right – today, bumper stickers can command hundreds of thousands of dollars from serious collectors, however many of the stickers that command these kinds of prices are already attached to the car they were originally stuck on decades earlier!

Bumper sticker popularity quickly spread to Chicago where they were used extensively by local politicians seeking election. By the time of the Second World War, bumper stickers played a prominent role in distributing propaganda messages and especially in the drive for War Bond sales which were vital to the continuing war effort.

After the war, a golden age of consumerism flourished and this was the age of big cars with long bodies and submarine like fins. Advertisers and marketing men joined with politicians and interest groups across the country in using bumper stickers in what was a very early example of social media campaigns going viral.

The Sixties were a time of upheaval in the country and a lot of creative souls wanted to express themselves, even those who outwardly conformed with suits and jobs instead of long hair and free love. As opinions and the country became increasingly polarized, expressing your own opinion became even more popular and the voices became more strident on subject matter ranging from the Vietnam War (Make Love Not War), religion, milk, music, love, society and sex (Honk if You’re Horny).

Today, it is impossible to hit the road without seeing a plethora of bumper stickers. All have a message and many have deep rooted meaning too, but for the most part there is nothing better for commuters or those on a long road trip, than a funny bumper sticker which brings a wry smile and sometimes simple laughter.

Author Bio: By Mark Trumper, President of MaverickLabel.com, the Internet’s leading provider of custom labels, stickers and decals. From custom bumper stickers, to window decals to bumper stickers, MaverickLabel.com can provide all of your label needs.

Category: Culture
Keywords: asset tags, labels, decals, bumpers, stickers, window decals