Why Do You Think They Call It a 'Snow Job'?

It is time to take a slightly jaundiced look at the goofy guy who seems all ice and innocence: the snowman. Sure, he's loveable and all. But did you realize he's also an inveterate shill?

In a new, meticulously researched nonfiction book, "The History of the Snowman," author Bob Eckstein argues that the three-balled wonder was one of the very first icons to be used in advertising, and perhaps the most successful.

How come? Duh — he's made of snow . He never complains or crashes his car or wakes up on the cover of the National Enquirer. When he's found with a kilo of powdery white stuff, pack it on! And unlike Santa, whose sell-by date expires every Dec. 25, the snowman is not linked to a particular holiday or religion. He stays fresh all winter.

Above all, however, it is the snowman's easygoing persona that made him such a good salesman. "The common man really related to this friendly, overweight goofball. He blazed the trail for that sort of approachable figure," Eckstein says. Think of all the fat-white-guy ad icons we know and love today — the Michelin Man, Pillsbury Doughboy, Maytag Repairman and even Mr. Bubble — "they're all kind of the bastard snowmen of advertising," says Eckstein.

Frosty has commerce in his blood. After Gene Autry sang "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1949 and sold 2 million copies, two songwriters looked at each other and said, basically: "Ka-ching!" They immediately set about writing "Frosty the Snowman." Equally eager to repeat his success, Autry snapped it up, along with the guys' other get-rich-quick ditty, "Here Comes Peter Cottontail."

But we are getting ahead of ourselves in snowman evolution.

Suffice it to say that long before that song, or even sound recordings, salesmen handed out business cards, and who was often depicted on them? Yep.

That was in the mid-1800s. Then came magazines, and editors fell for the big flake. Norman Rockwell painted a snowman cover for The Saturday Evening Post — twice. Over at The New Yorker, the snowman has been on more covers than any other figure.

By the time advertising really started taking off — the '20s — snowmen were selling everything from laxatives to perfume to Milburn Light Electric cars. Eckstein's book reprints hundreds of these old ads, and they are just fantastic.

What he found in unearthing all this ephemera is that, "whenever there has been a development in media, the snowman has been on the forefront." When postcards ruled, the snowman starred on postcards. When silent movies debuted, he starred in one of the first. And now that we are in the Internet age, there is even, I'm sorry to say, snowman porn.

Although, the first recorded snowman porn happened in 1511 in Brussels, Belgium. Guess you'll have to buy the book to read all about how the townsfolk went wild and sculpted snow couples in all sorts of surprising positions as a way to get their ya-yas out and shock the establishment. Eckstein calls it the Middle Ages' Woodstock.

Today the snowman is a lot more kid-friendly, but he's busier selling than ever. Look closely at his eyes and you'll see. They're not coal.

They're gold.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.