Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Smokey Bear Gets Makeover-- Part 2: A World War II Connection

Smokey Bear turns 70 this year, but no retirement for him.  he's still educating people about preventing forest fires.  last year there were 47,579 wildfires across the US and typically 9 of 10 were human fault.

His "people" have given him younger and fresher look to appeal to those kind of folks.

He also now has a Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts (22,000 followers in Twitter).

Smokey (the) Bear was created August 9, 1944, as the property of the U.S. government.  During World War II, we were worried that our enemies might start fires to destroy our wood natural resource.  More than 22 million acres of forests were burning each war year when the government sorely needed timber.

To help with the war effort, a group of ad executives formed the Ad Council, a non-profit volunteer group.  they came up with the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" line and, early on, they started work on how to prevent those fires.

At first, they though of using a bird or a horse, but finally settled on a bear.  Thus, Smokey Bear (the) came into being, a nice, friendly bear.

Only YOU, You, You.  --DaCoot

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