PENN LINES 8

across his brass-plated crown.

And the roundness of his waistline

is a sure indication that this child of

the 1950s is reaching his 50s.

But the twinkle in his eye,

the smile on his face, the everpresent

wave will never age —

nor will his dedicated service to

electric cooperatives and their

consumers.

Willie Wiredhand, complete

with a light-socket head, push-button

nose and an old-fashioned electrical

plug filling out his lower half,

celebrates a half century as the official

mascot and "spokescharacter" of

electric cooperatives this year. The

friendly and inspirational figure has

come to symbolize dependable, local,

consumer-owned electricity all over

the world. (In Latin America, for example,

he is known as "Electro Pepe.")

"Willie" has appeared on just about

every type of cooperative promotional

item over the years — signage for

buildings and substations, T-shirts, ball

caps, golf balls, Christmas ornaments,

beach towels, night lights and much

more. Although his presence on both the

local and national stage has declined in

recent years in the face of more aggressive

cooperative marketing activities,

Willie Wiredhand remains a viable and

valuable connection between cooperatives

and their consumers.

"Willie is one of a long line of industrial

spokescharacters that have been

used to identify and personalize industrial

products and services," notes

Margaret Callcott, a research manager

for Scripps Networks in Nashville, Tenn.,

who has written extensively on advertising

subjects. "Most companies would

love to have a symbol as recognizable as

Willie Wiredhand to distinguish them in

the marketplace."

Willie Wiredhand was "born" October

30, 1950, the creation of the late

Andrew "Drew" McLay, an entomologistturned-

freelance-artist working for the

National Rural Electric Cooperative

Association (NRECA), based at the time

in Washington, D.C. NRECA is the service

organization for the nation’s 900-

plus electric cooperatives.

"We were toying with ideas for an

electric cooperative symbol," recalls

William Roberts, who in the 1950s

served as editor of NRECA’s trade publication

out the idea that the symbol ought to

portray rural electric service as the

farmer’s hired hand, which in those

days was almost the whole public relations

story we wanted to get across. Drew

picked up on the idea at my home one

night after a couple of beers."

Sprawled out on Roberts’ living room

floor with a sketchpad, McLay created

"Willie the Wired Hand." NRECA’s

membership then selected the symbol,

shortened to "Willie Wiredhand," as

their animated ambassador in 1951.

Willie came along in the heyday of

"cartoon" advertising, when hundreds of

lovable characters — Mr. Clean, Mr.

Peanut, Mr. Salty, the Jolly Green Giant

and Elsie the Cow — promoted everything

from food and household cleaners

to stomach antacids. (The first animated

"pitchman" dates from 1890s France —

the Michelin Man, a guy made of stacked

tires.)

"These characters exhibited personality

— a friendly face and jolly

demeanor with which consumers could

develop a positive relationship," Callcott

remarks, explaining that with the rise of

mass production and mass transportation,

companies needed a way to make

their products stand out and at the same

time build consumer loyalty.

"For whatever reason, people connect

and respond to these characters —

they touch a human need to personify

things," she adds. "By the time we

reach adulthood, personification

is ingrained in

our psyche: we name

our vehicles, plants,

even our guns. We

are always seeking

to relate to them

on some human

level, never quite

believing that

somehow they do

not have a soul of

their own."

Callcott emphasizes

that utilities in particular

needed to personalize

a very intangible

product.

"Willie Wiredhand,

Reddy

Kilowatt, Katie

Kord, Handy

Heat and Miss Flame were among the

many characters electric and gas companies

developed to address this challenge,"

she says.

Electric cooperatives initially wanted

to use Reddy Kilowatt as their

spokescharacter. Reddy — depicted with

a body, arms and legs of jagged red lightning

bolts and a round head equipped

with a light bulb nose and outlets for ears

— had been around since 1926 and was

being used by 188 of the nation’s private

power companies as of 1951.

However, Reddy’s creator — Ashton

B. Collins, who had licensed his character

to the private utilities — believed

that electric cooperatives were "socialistic"

because they borrowed money

from the federal government. Not only

did Collins refuse to let Reddy be associated

with cooperatives, he instructed

his lawyers to warn NRECA that any rival

character cooperatives might develop

would infringe on his exclusive trademarks.

Believing that Willie — with his

UL-approved (for the era) body — was

different enough from Reddy, electric

cooperatives pressed ahead with his

introduction. "Any similarity between

trim, efficient Willie Wiredhand and

the shocking figure of Reddy

Kilowatt is purely coincidental,"

NRECA said.

After several years

of angry exchanges,

Collins and a coalition

of 109 private

power companies

formed Reddy

Kilowatt, Inc. and

on July 14, 1953,

filed a federal lawsuit

against a South

Carolina electric

cooperative that was

using Willie. Their brief

accused electric cooperatives

of copyright

infringement

and unfair competitive

practices.

For relief, they

asked cooperatives

to scrap any use of Willie in their

advertising efforts and to pay damages.

The gist of Reddy’s case was not in how

Willie looked, but rather private power

company concerns that in marketing

electricity "Willie’s poses" would cause

public confusion. Willie’s attorneys, however,

countered that long before Reddy,

other animated characters had seen widespread

use in the electric industry as

trademarks and promotions. In fact,

testimony revealed that Reddy’s handlers

had acted like B-grade movie gangsters

over the years, using threats of legal

action to "unplug" other spokescharacters

such as Arkansas Power & Light’s

"The Willing Watt," Boston Edison’s

"Eddie Edison," Bradford Electric

Company’s "Mr. Watts-His-Name" and

"Elec-Tric" of Cincinnati Gas and Electric.

Finally in June 1956, after a weeklong

trial, a federal district court judge in

South Carolina awarded the first round

of "Reddy vs. Willie" to the

cooperatives. Not yet knocked

out, Reddy and his crew

promptly took their arguments

to the Fourth U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals.

"This is the most vicious thing that

rural electric systems have yet encountered,"

commented then-NRECA General

Manager Clyde Ellis. "We’re not

fighting one or 10 power companies,

we’re fighting more than 100 of them!"

On January 7, 1957, a three-judge

panel from the appeals bench issued

a unanimous decision in favor of Willie.

The court noted similarities between

the two characters but added that

Reddy "has appeared in thousands of

poses doing almost everything possible

and in every conceivable activity. The

plaintiff has no right to appropriate as its

exclusive property all the situations in

which figures may used to illustrate the

manifold uses of electricity."

Out of the victory, Willie came to

symbolize more than cooperative

friendliness — he was now the true

embodiment of cooperative spunk,

willing to stand up for consumers in the

face of impossible odds against the

entrenched might of huge power companies.

The phrase, "He’s small, but

he’s wirey" became part of the trademark

Willie was granted by the U.S.

Patent Office in 1957.

By the 1970s, the popularity of cartoon

spokescharacters began to wane,

with most of the few survivors relegated

to cereal boxes and snack foods. In Reddy

Kilowatt’s case, the energy crunch of

the decade made life tough. As demand

for electricity outstripped supply, most

private power companies simply gave

him the pink slip, figuring he was no

longer needed as a promotional tool.

Willie, on the other hand, rose to

meet the energy crisis. He donned a

sweater and hopped on a bicycle,

caulked windows and weatherstripped

doors in new ads pushing energy conservation

and efficiency tips. Yet by the

early 1980s, many electric cooperatives

began to view Willie as antiquated and

placed him on a back shelf like an old

appliance.

Then a surprising development took

place — animation made a comeback

in the advertising/marketing world,

starting with Metropolitan Life Insurance

using Peanuts characters to sell

financial products.

"Much of the rebirth was fueled by

the sizable baby boomer market eager

to recapture facets of its childhood,"

Callcott mentions. "King Features

Syndicate even took out ‘work wanted’

ads for old cartoon favorites like Betty

Boop, Popeye the Sailor and Blondie,

hoping to cash in on the nostalgia craze."

In response, Willie Wiredhand

became the rage in electric cooperative

circles once again, though not as a fullfledged

marketing vehicle. He had

evolved into a pop art celebrity, allowing

his image to adorn novelty items

like coffee mugs and watches.

Even Reddy Kilowatt returned

from exile. In 1998, Minneapolis based

Northern States Power

(NSP), which serves 1.4 million

customers in Minnesota,

Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula

of Michigan and the Dakotas,

bought exclusive rights to the

character from Ashton Collins Jr.,

son of Reddy’s creator. Reddy

was outfitted with new sneakers

and given a sidekick, Reddy

Flame, to promote NSP’s natural

gas operations.

Reddy quickly experienced

somewhat of a brownout, though

— in August 2000, NSP merged

with Denver, Colo.-based New

Century Energies to form Xcel

Energy. A spokesman for Xcel

Energy says, "Reddy is in a bit of

a transition with his new employer.

Right now, his duties are

largely ceremonial — parades

and safety demonstrations."

W h i l e W i l l i e a n d h i s

spokescharacter friends may rise

and fall in prominence over

time, Callcott believes consumers

can be assured that they

will never totally fade away.

"The landscape may change, but

people do not lose their desire to feel

a personal connection to products and

services that permeate their lives," she

stresses. "If anything, this need intensifies

when distribution channels

expand — as they did at the turn of the

last century when mass industrialization

and transportation arrived on the scene

and today, with the introduction of the

Internet."

She concludes, "Unlike human

characters, such as Aunt Jemima, Betty

Crocker and Uncle Ben, Willie Wiredhand

does not require physical updating.

As a perky plug, he still represents

electricity while allowing cooperatives

to leverage their ‘brand’ of reliable,

consumer-owned electric power."

PENN LINES 8

across his brass-plated crown.

And the roundness of his waistline

is a sure indication that this child of

the 1950s is reaching his 50s.

But the twinkle in his eye,

the smile on his face, the everpresent

wave will never age —

nor will his dedicated service to

electric cooperatives and their

consumers.

Willie Wiredhand, complete

with a light-socket head, push-button

nose and an old-fashioned electrical

plug filling out his lower half,

celebrates a half century as the official

mascot and "spokescharacter" of

electric cooperatives this year. The

friendly and inspirational figure has

come to symbolize dependable, local,

consumer-owned electricity all over

the world. (In Latin America, for example,

he is known as "Electro Pepe.")

"Willie" has appeared on just about

every type of cooperative promotional

item over the years — signage for

buildings and substations, T-shirts, ball

caps, golf balls, Christmas ornaments,

beach towels, night lights and much

more. Although his presence on both the

local and national stage has declined in

recent years in the face of more aggressive

cooperative marketing activities,

Willie Wiredhand remains a viable and

valuable connection between cooperatives

and their consumers.

"Willie is one of a long line of industrial

spokescharacters that have been

used to identify and personalize industrial

products and services," notes

Margaret Callcott, a research manager

for Scripps Networks in Nashville, Tenn.,

who has written extensively on advertising

subjects. "Most companies would

love to have a symbol as recognizable as

Willie Wiredhand to distinguish them in

the marketplace."

Willie Wiredhand was "born" October

30, 1950, the creation of the late

Andrew "Drew" McLay, an entomologistturned-

freelance-artist working for the

National Rural Electric Cooperative

Association (NRECA), based at the time

in Washington, D.C. NRECA is the service

organization for the nation’s 900-

plus electric cooperatives.

"We were toying with ideas for an

electric cooperative symbol," recalls

William Roberts, who in the 1950s

served as editor of NRECA’s trade publication

out the idea that the symbol ought to

portray rural electric service as the

farmer’s hired hand, which in those

days was almost the whole public relations

story we wanted to get across. Drew

picked up on the idea at my home one

night after a couple of beers."

Sprawled out on Roberts’ living room

floor with a sketchpad, McLay created

"Willie the Wired Hand." NRECA’s

membership then selected the symbol,

shortened to "Willie Wiredhand," as

their animated ambassador in 1951.

Willie came along in the heyday of

"cartoon" advertising, when hundreds of

lovable characters — Mr. Clean, Mr.

Peanut, Mr. Salty, the Jolly Green Giant

and Elsie the Cow — promoted everything

from food and household cleaners

to stomach antacids. (The first animated

"pitchman" dates from 1890s France —

the Michelin Man, a guy made of stacked

tires.)

"These characters exhibited personality

— a friendly face and jolly

demeanor with which consumers could

develop a positive relationship," Callcott

remarks, explaining that with the rise of

mass production and mass transportation,

companies needed a way to make

their products stand out and at the same

time build consumer loyalty.

"For whatever reason, people connect

and respond to these characters —

they touch a human need to personify

things," she adds. "By the time we

reach adulthood, personification

is ingrained in

our psyche: we name

our vehicles, plants,

even our guns. We

are always seeking

to relate to them

on some human

level, never quite

believing that

somehow they do

not have a soul of

their own."

Callcott emphasizes

that utilities in particular

needed to personalize

a very intangible

product.

"Willie Wiredhand,

Reddy

Kilowatt, Katie

Kord, Handy

Heat and Miss Flame were among the

many characters electric and gas companies

developed to address this challenge,"

she says.

Electric cooperatives initially wanted

to use Reddy Kilowatt as their

spokescharacter. Reddy — depicted with

a body, arms and legs of jagged red lightning

bolts and a round head equipped

with a light bulb nose and outlets for ears

— had been around since 1926 and was

being used by 188 of the nation’s private

power companies as of 1951.

However, Reddy’s creator — Ashton

B. Collins, who had licensed his character

to the private utilities — believed

that electric cooperatives were "socialistic"

because they borrowed money

from the federal government. Not only

did Collins refuse to let Reddy be associated

with cooperatives, he instructed

his lawyers to warn NRECA that any rival

character cooperatives might develop

would infringe on his exclusive trademarks.

Believing that Willie — with his

UL-approved (for the era) body — was

different enough from Reddy, electric

cooperatives pressed ahead with his

introduction. "Any similarity between

trim, efficient Willie Wiredhand and

the shocking figure of Reddy

Kilowatt is purely coincidental,"

NRECA said.

After several years

of angry exchanges,

Collins and a coalition

of 109 private

power companies

formed Reddy

Kilowatt, Inc. and

on July 14, 1953,

filed a federal lawsuit

against a South

Carolina electric

cooperative that was

using Willie. Their brief

accused electric cooperatives

of copyright

infringement

and unfair competitive

practices.

For relief, they

asked cooperatives

to scrap any use of Willie in their

advertising efforts and to pay damages.

The gist of Reddy’s case was not in how

Willie looked, but rather private power

company concerns that in marketing

electricity "Willie’s poses" would cause

public confusion. Willie’s attorneys, however,

countered that long before Reddy,

other animated characters had seen widespread

use in the electric industry as

trademarks and promotions. In fact,

testimony revealed that Reddy’s handlers

had acted like B-grade movie gangsters

over the years, using threats of legal

action to "unplug" other spokescharacters

such as Arkansas Power & Light’s

"The Willing Watt," Boston Edison’s

"Eddie Edison," Bradford Electric

Company’s "Mr. Watts-His-Name" and

"Elec-Tric" of Cincinnati Gas and Electric.

Finally in June 1956, after a weeklong

trial, a federal district court judge in

South Carolina awarded the first round

of "Reddy vs. Willie" to the

cooperatives. Not yet knocked

out, Reddy and his crew

promptly took their arguments

to the Fourth U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals.

"This is the most vicious thing that

rural electric systems have yet encountered,"

commented then-NRECA General

Manager Clyde Ellis. "We’re not

fighting one or 10 power companies,

we’re fighting more than 100 of them!"

On January 7, 1957, a three-judge

panel from the appeals bench issued

a unanimous decision in favor of Willie.

The court noted similarities between

the two characters but added that

Reddy "has appeared in thousands of

poses doing almost everything possible

and in every conceivable activity. The

plaintiff has no right to appropriate as its

exclusive property all the situations in

which figures may used to illustrate the

manifold uses of electricity."

Out of the victory, Willie came to

symbolize more than cooperative

friendliness — he was now the true

embodiment of cooperative spunk,

willing to stand up for consumers in the

face of impossible odds against the

entrenched might of huge power companies.

The phrase, "He’s small, but

he’s wirey" became part of the trademark

Willie was granted by the U.S.

Patent Office in 1957.

By the 1970s, the popularity of cartoon

spokescharacters began to wane,

with most of the few survivors relegated

to cereal boxes and snack foods. In Reddy

Kilowatt’s case, the energy crunch of

the decade made life tough. As demand

for electricity outstripped supply, most

private power companies simply gave

him the pink slip, figuring he was no

longer needed as a promotional tool.

Willie, on the other hand, rose to

meet the energy crisis. He donned a

sweater and hopped on a bicycle,

caulked windows and weatherstripped

doors in new ads pushing energy conservation

and efficiency tips. Yet by the

early 1980s, many electric cooperatives

began to view Willie as antiquated and

placed him on a back shelf like an old

appliance.

Then a surprising development took

place — animation made a comeback

in the advertising/marketing world,

starting with Metropolitan Life Insurance

using Peanuts characters to sell

financial products.

"Much of the rebirth was fueled by

the sizable baby boomer market eager

to recapture facets of its childhood,"

Callcott mentions. "King Features

Syndicate even took out ‘work wanted’

ads for old cartoon favorites like Betty

Boop, Popeye the Sailor and Blondie,

hoping to cash in on the nostalgia craze."

In response, Willie Wiredhand

became the rage in electric cooperative

circles once again, though not as a fullfledged

marketing vehicle. He had

evolved into a pop art celebrity, allowing

his image to adorn novelty items

like coffee mugs and watches.

Even Reddy Kilowatt returned

from exile. In 1998, Minneapolis based

Northern States Power

(NSP), which serves 1.4 million

customers in Minnesota,

Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula

of Michigan and the Dakotas,

bought exclusive rights to the

character from Ashton Collins Jr.,

son of Reddy’s creator. Reddy

was outfitted with new sneakers

and given a sidekick, Reddy

Flame, to promote NSP’s natural

gas operations.

Reddy quickly experienced

somewhat of a brownout, though

— in August 2000, NSP merged

with Denver, Colo.-based New

Century Energies to form Xcel

Energy. A spokesman for Xcel

Energy says, "Reddy is in a bit of

a transition with his new employer.

Right now, his duties are

largely ceremonial — parades

and safety demonstrations."

W h i l e W i l l i e a n d h i s

spokescharacter friends may rise

and fall in prominence over

time, Callcott believes consumers

can be assured that they

will never totally fade away.

"The landscape may change, but

people do not lose their desire to feel

a personal connection to products and

services that permeate their lives," she

stresses. "If anything, this need intensifies

when distribution channels

expand — as they did at the turn of the

last century when mass industrialization

and transportation arrived on the scene

and today, with the introduction of the

Internet."

She concludes, "Unlike human

characters, such as Aunt Jemima, Betty

Crocker and Uncle Ben, Willie Wiredhand

does not require physical updating.

As a perky plug, he still represents

electricity while allowing cooperatives

to leverage their ‘brand’ of reliable,

consumer-owned electric power."