Today's Tidbit... 1935-1938 Associated Oil Football Schedules

Companies find many ways to entice consumers to buy their goods. Sometimes, they attract customers by providing products or services that are better than their competitors—imagine that—but they often rely on marketing, imagery, and intangible associations to connect with buyers.

The latter was the case in the late 1930s when Associated Oil sold gasoline, oil, and automotive services to consumers in the Western U.S. under the Associated Oil or Flying A brands.

As discussed recently with the 1937 Grantland Rice Cities Service brochure cover that led to a pop quiz, the execs in the Cities Service and Associated Oil offices thought an effective method of connecting with customers was to give away annual brochures detailing football facts and figures, particularly team schedules.

Besides gas stations, the sponsoring companies for the brochures tended to sell products purchased by men, such as men's clothing, alcohol, insurance, automobiles, and, of course, gasoline. Men bought most of these products, and since manly men liked sports, especially football, the schedule giveaway made sense.

Recently, I saw these four little beauties for sale online, so I offered the seller less than his asking price. Recognizing that I was a highly skilled negotiator, the seller immediately accepted my offer, resulting in the items entering my hands today.

I bought the items based solely on the images of the covers.

There were no other images displaying the information inside the pamphlets, but I own similar items, so I understood their general contents. Still, I did not know whether something in the four brochures would be worth sharing with you. It's a situation similar to opening a box of Cracker Jacks. You know the Cracker Jacks will be tasty, but you can't predict the quality of the prize.

I wrote the setup above before I received the package in the mail, so here's what I found today when I opened the metaphorical Cracker Jacks box and examined the four prizes inside.

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