Explore the 80-year history of Smokey Bear, America's longest-running PSA campaign. Learn how this iconic character revolutionized wildfire prevention marketing and continues to impact audiences today.
Nov 12, 2024
For over seven decades, Smokey Bear has been the face of wildfire prevention in the United States, becoming one of the most recognizable and successful public service advertising campaigns in history. This article explores the origins, evolution, and impact of Smokey Bear's campaign, highlighting its effectiveness in raising awareness about forest fire prevention.
The story of Smokey Bear begins in the early 1940s, during a time of national security concerns related to wildfires. With the majority of experienced firefighters engaged in World War II, the threat of forest fires became a pressing issue. In response, the U.S. Forest Service created the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention (CFFP) program to raise public awareness about the dangers of wildfires.
Initially, the CFFP collaborated with Disney, using characters from the popular animated film "Bambi" in a 1944 poster to appeal to national pride and highlight the importance of fire prevention. However, the need for a dedicated mascot led to the creation of Smokey Bear on August 9, 1944, by artist Albert Staehle.
Smokey Bear quickly became a beloved figure, appearing on posters, stamps, and in various media campaigns. His popularity grew so rapidly that Congress passed an act placing him under the control of the Secretary of Agriculture, ensuring that all royalties and fees from his use would go towards wildfire prevention and education.
The campaign's effectiveness was further boosted by a serendipitous event in 1952. A bear cub, rescued from a wildfire in New Mexico, became the living symbol of Smokey Bear. Dubbed "Little Smokey," the cub resided at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., until his death in 1976, serving as a powerful ambassador for the wildfire prevention cause.
Over the years, Smokey's message has evolved to reflect changing understanding of fire ecology and prevention strategies:
Smokey Bear's campaign has achieved remarkable recognition:
Controversy and CriticismDespite its success, the Smokey Bear campaign has faced criticism from some wildfire policy experts. The "Smokey Bear effect" refers to the unintended consequences of decades of fire suppression, which can lead to the accumulation of fuel in forests, potentially resulting in more severe wildfires.
Smokey Bear remains a powerful symbol of wildfire prevention and environmental stewardship. His enduring appeal lies in his ability to personify the wilderness and communicate the importance of fire safety to generations of Americans. As climate change continues to increase the risk of wildfires, Smokey's message remains as relevant as ever.
The success of the Smokey Bear campaign demonstrates the power of effective public service advertising. By creating a relatable character and a simple, memorable message, the campaign has educated millions about the importance of wildfire prevention. As we face new environmental challenges, Smokey Bear stands as a testament to the enduring impact of well-crafted public service announcements.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Teddy Bear Article & draw parallels in the beginning
Ferocious bears have roamed the forests of North America for millennia. Their broad and powerful stature intimidates any who enter into their animal domain (or kingdom?). It is fitting that the character of the longest-running public service advertisement hails from the Ursus genus.
Smokey Bear (not Smokey the Bear, we will get into that later) was a perfect advertisement to bring the forest alive in the consciousness of the American public. He was the first successful environmentalist promotion to inspire interest in protecting the wilderness.
The Challenge
Forest fires have always been a grave human concern, as still in the USA today, alone an average of 100,000 wildfires burn up to 5 million acres of land annually -- the equivalent of about 4 million football fields.1 84% of these fires are caused by humans according to contemporary statistics.2 Local and federal governments today are still seeking methods to reduce and control these deadly natural disasters sparked by human hands and therefore seemingly 'preventable'.
As early as 1902, the USA federal government's General Land Office began publishing forest fire warning posters in efforts to spread awareness and information on how to keep man-made fires under control. These guidelines were lost in the milieu of print that was devoured by the Western world's public at the turn of the century.
Bracketed by the world wars these guideline posters evolved into the wartime propaganda-style posters. In 1939 in front of a raging forest blaze, a grizzled forest ranger bearing a striking resemblance to the character of Uncle Sam [Do another blog article on Uncle Sam and link it here] warned "Your Forest-Your Fault-Your Loss". The authoritarian message played on the public's sense of national pride fitting into the propaganda of the day.
Overall Ad Score: *Come up with a unique name and copyright it?
Effectiveness: 6 (propaganda style is effective)
Message: 8 (direct, memorable and threatening)
Recognition: 7 (Uncle Sam)
Creative: 5 (expressionist oil painting is well executed)
Shock: 7 (fire is scary!)
Sex: 2 (heroic Uncle Sam looks good in uniform?)
Sobriety: 8 (fires are serious)
Rate it Yourself! - Engage readers and have an audience score like rotten tomatoes.
----
The concern of human-caused wildfires did become became a real threat to national security during World War II. There were fears that Japanese or Axis saboteurs would ignite wildfires to threaten the lives and property, and tie-up resources in the Western USA. This was especially troublesome as the majority of experienced firefighters were already engaged in the war effort.
In the spring of 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced near the coast of Southern California and fired a salvo of shells exploding on an oil field near Santa Barbara. These shells caused minimal damage but the central US government immediately saw the clear fire risk as that oil field was adjacent to the Los Padres National Forest.
Need better transition sentence here to tie back to 2 paragraphs up (the concerns) - maybe move above the preceeding paragraph?
Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Japanese concocted a secret plan to do exactly that. They created the Fugo project to launch thousands of high altitude bomb balloons into the jet stream carrying them to the North Western USA and Canada in attempts to start wildfires.4 The project was mostly unsuccessful in igniting fires but did kill six people in Oregon in the summer of 1945.
The USA Forest Service created the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention (CFFP) program to get the word out. The War Advertising Council and the Ad Association of State Foresters were charged to develop the advertising campaign for the program. The group turned to Disney for help. Consider location of this paragraph - would it be better to introduce bambi first?
The Pitch
In 1942 Disney released the successful animated film"Bambi" which caused brought the danger of wildfires to the public through the eyes of a young deer and his talking animals friends. Appealing to national pride, the CFFP was given license to use the celebrated animal characters in a 1944 poster.
Overall Ad Score: *Come up with a unique name and copyright it?
Effectiveness: 6
Message: 8
Recognition: 7
Creative: 5
Shock: 7
Sex: 2
Sobriety: 8
Rate it Yourself! - Engage readers and have an audience score like rotten tomatoes.
---
After the success of the Disney poster, (is there more to this story?) the CFFP wanted their own non-licensed Disney animal character to continue the campaign going forward. And on August 9, 1944, by Artist Albert Staehle brought to life Smokey Bear.
Smokey Bear became a big hit and the Forest Service featured him toting his trusty shovel around on posters and stamps while radio carried folksy song promotions and Television featured scared straight PSAs. Smokey became so popular that his image was bootlegged and co-opted by enterprising citizens (as since he was in the public domain). These 'unauthorized' advertising campaigns were undermining Smokey Bear's message. US Congress stepped in and passed an act that removed Smokey from the public domain and placed him under control of the Secretary of Agriculture. This linked all collected royalties and fees for the use of Smokey Bear to go to continued wildfire prevention and education. (PL 82-359, as amended by PL 92- 318).
Smokey Bear controversially became Smokey "the" bear to the public in 1952 when Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote the popular Smokey Bear Anthem. This song would start a debate about the bear's name over the decades simply because Smokey "the" Bear was needed to maintain the song lyrics rhythm. This manifestation of the Mandela effect or remembering something popular in an incorrect way like Elton John's infamous "Hold Me Closer Tony Danza". (invert the last sentence, since many readers including me may not know what the Mandela effect is?)
Perhaps the strangest Smokey Bear tribute was the 1969 flower power environmentalist poem Smokey the Bear Sutra written in the style of the Bhagavad Gita.
Overall Ad Score: *Come up with a unique name and copyright it?
Effectiveness: 6
Message: 8
Recognition: 7
Creative: 5
Shock: 7
Sex: 2 1
Sobriety: 8
Rate it Yourself! - Engage readers and have an audience score like rotten tomatoes
---
The Brand Becomes Alive
need transition sentence? Met smokey in real life...
In 1952 a blaze was raging around Capitan Mountain in New Mexico and the crew battling the fire saw a lone bear cub wandering down the fire line. They were caught in the path of the fires storm and the crew hid in a rockslide as the fire raged around them for an hour and burned past them. The bear cub hid in a nearby tree and barely survived with bad burns on his hind legs and paws. The crew removed the bear from the tree and a took him to a nearby rancher's home. A Department of Game and Fish ranger heard the story and brought the cub on a plane to Santa Fe, NM where he was treated and bandaged. News of the story spread throughout the Southwest and then the Associated Press picked up the story and spread it nationwide. The New Mexico game warden wrote the chief of the Forest Service offering the cub to the agency as long as the cub would be dedicated to a conservation and wildfire prevention publicity program. The Forest Service agreed and the cub made his way to the National Zoo in Washington DC and became "Little Smokey" the living representation of Smokey Bear. Little Smokey was featured in a 1953 TV feature highlighting his story."
In 1962, he "married" Goldie Bear. It was hoped that they would provide a future generation of Smokies. They did not, and in 1971 the pair "adopted" another orphaned cub from the Lincoln Forest: Little Smokey (a.k.a. Young Smokey, a.k.a. Smokey Jr.)." He remained at the national zoo until his death in 1976. He is buried at the Smokey Bear Historical Park in Capitan, NM.
Little Smokey was a huge PR boon for the Forest Service and Smokey's message especially in reaching kids and the new generation of forest stewards. The Junior Forest Ranger program was started shortly after in 1952 encouraging kids to write a letter expressing their interest in fire prevention. The kid would be sent a reply from Smokey Bear and some fire prevention materials. The volume of mail correspondence between Smokey and his Junior Rangers was so high the USPS gave Smokey his own ZIP code 20252.
----
The Smokey Bear character would evolve little through the years. Smokey Bear's catchphrase was changed to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires" to clarify the prevention of wildfires in natural areas like grass, range and brush not just in forests.. 2010 saw the first complete rebrand of Smokey Bear featuring a brawny CGI bear. The bear hug took on a new meaning as Smokey creepily hugged fire safe campers and drivers in video promotions. These irreverent toned messages provided Smokey a much-needed boost in popularity for a new generation. The campaign was complete with smokeybear.com, social profiles, Twitter hashtags (#smokeybearhugs) and text for information tie-ins. This new look culminated in the promotion of Smokey Bear's 70th birthday celebration in 2014.
---
Ad Impact
Smokey Bear has been a hugely impactful long-running public service campaign. In 2010 according to the Ad Council, he and his message "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires." are recognized in the United States by 95% of adults and 77% of children.6 According to Richard Earle, author of The Art of Cause Marketing, "Smokey is simple, strong, straightforward. He's a denizen of those woods you're visiting, and he cares about preserving them. Anyone who grew up watching Bambi realizes how terrifying a forest fire can be. But Smokey wouldn't run away. Smokey's strong. He'll stay and fight the fire if necessary, but he'd rather have you douse it and cover it up so he doesn't have to." 7 The enduring bear character has a proven mass appeal as the public identifies with the "cute", majestic and powerful Smokey Bear.
But has the campaign been successful in actually stopping wildfires?
[turn stats into infographic]
1930s - 167,277 was the average annual number of wildfires (number includes lightning started wildfires.)
1950s - 125,958
1960s - 106,306
2001 -2008: 65,000 wildfires occurred each year from human carelessness burning 3 million acres annually. During the same period 12,000 wildfires started by lightning.
While statistics show a decline in wildfires there is uncertainty as to the effectiveness of the fire prevention campaign. Some experts have even argued that Smokey Bear and his fire prevention policy is actually been harmful to the environment. They argue that with the settlement of the western North America caused clearing the of the land and extensive grass loss due to grazing livestock has combined with the creation of national forests has concentrated fires to national forests. These fires are even more dangerous as the indigenous ecology builds up extensive fuel in the form of brush, branches, and leaves. This accumulation burns faster, hotter and even can affect the topsoil chemistry. Fires are inevitable. They even have coined this phenomenon the Smokey Bear effect. The new school of thought emphases that fires are inevitable and natural so the best way to safely address the pr
[WIKI] The Smokey Bear campaign has been criticized by wildfire policy experts in cases where decades of fire suppression and the indigenous fire ecology were not taken into consideration, creating forests unnaturally dense with fuel.[34] Periodic low-intensity wildfires are an integral component of certain ecosystems that evolved to depend on natural fires for vitality, rejuvenation, and regeneration.When a brushland, woodland, or forested area is not impacted by fire for a long period, large quantities of flammable leaves, branches, and other organic matter tend to accumulate on the forest floor and above in brush thickets. When a forest fire eventually does occur, the increased fuel creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Frequent small 'natural' ground fires prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive. There is increasing use of controlled burns directed by skilled firefighters, and allowing wildland fires not causing human harm or threat to burn out.
Smokey Bear's endearing character has been effective in personifying the wilderness and the threat of wildfires.
Smokey is a great case study in positive children’s advertising. The forethought to target this demographic with a cute talking anthropomorphic bear mirroring the successful Disney model proved successful. Even if wildfires continue to rage stronger in the future Smokey will continue protecting potential human-caused fires by educating the next generation of visitors into the forest. Smokey Bear is a pioneer in successful PSAs, children's education and is message will continue to remind us of the real threat of wildfires to our beautiful ecological heritage. Today we need Smokey Bear more than ever.
If you wish to donate to Smokey Bear here is the link.
Add some color:
Ask to interview the creative director or ad agency about the new Smokey Bear campaign. Draft interview questions and send a linkedin request.
End call to action
Have a favoite ad or want me to review a promotion? It can be contemporary as a Super bowl ad or as of ancient as the Code of Hamorabi. Add your idea to the list or vote for upcoming topics: add google drive sheet link.
Our shared stories and collective archetypes continue to get people excited, motivated and embue passion for people, ideas, companies, goods and services. I’m interested in these stories we have told and why we continue to utilize them. This is a history of the human experience seen through the lens of advertising. I’m trying to catalog the good, bad, salacious, famous, imfamous, dated, forgotten and everything in between.
If you like the story or have one you would like me to do, please let me know. Leave a comment and upvote!
I also take donations if you are into that kind of thing—- add link to public btc, eth and stellar.
Sources
1. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfires/
2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-shows-84-wildfires-caused-humans-180962315/
3. James Montgomery Flagg, Your Forests--Your Fault--Your Loss, ca. 1935-1943, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1950.10.4. Accessed: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/your-forests-your-fault-your-loss-8401
4. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375820191/beware-of-japanese-balloon-bombs
5. Unknown. 1943. “Walt Disney's Bambi: "Please, Mister, don't be careless. Prevent Forest Fires. Greater danger than ever!" .” Special Collections, USDA National Agricultural Library. Accessed March 24, 2018, https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/items/show/457. Accessed: https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/exhibits/show/smokey-bear/item/457
6. The Ad Council At A Glance". adcouncil.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 3, 2010.
7. Richard Earle (2000). The Art of Cause Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 230.
Sources 2:
https://smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history/about-the-campaign
https://sdda.sd.gov/legacydocs/forestry/educational-information/pdf/history-of-smokeybear.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042402441.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/business/media/new-smokey-bear-gives-hugs-not-just-warnings.html
https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/biography-real-smokey-bear/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/real-smokey-bear-has-new-biography-180954444/
https://www.npr.org/2012/08/23/159373691/how-the-smokey-bear-effect-led-to-raging-wildfires
http://krqe.com/2018/01/23/smokey-bear-celebration-canceled-could-he-soon-be-forgotten/
"The Ad Council At A Glance". adcouncil.org.
http://www.adcouncil.org/download.aspx?id=458
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-smokeybear24-2009jul24-story.html
