Bibendum - Michelin - Bibendum

Michelin Little Man, advertising item
Resin sculpture of Michelin
new with packaging

Tracked shipping
careful packaging
with foam protection

Michelin little man in resin, large size compared to gadgets that were given away with tire purchases
This was supplied to workshops as a form of advertising

Historical notes:

During the participation in the Universal and Colonial Exposition of Lyon in 1894, Édouard and André Michelin noticed a pile of tires that suggested to Édouard the figure of a man without arms. Four years later, in 1898, André met the French cartoonist Marius Rossillon, popularly known as O'Galop, who showed him an image he had created for a brewery in Munich that had been refused. It depicted a large human figure holding a beer and the Latin phrase Orazio Nunc est bibendum ("Now is the time to drink"). André suggested replacing the man with a figure made of tires, similar to the pile seen years before; O'Galop thus transformed the original image into what would become the Michelin symbol.

The first poster of 1898 depicted him toasting his miserable competitors with the phrase Nunc est bibendum, holding a glass full of dangerous nails and broken glass, while pronouncing the phrase "C’est à dire: À votre santé. Le pneu Michelin boit l’obstacle" ("That is to say: to your health. The Michelin tire drinks the obstacles"). [1] The implication was that Michelin tires would easily overcome road hazards unlike other tires.

Modern version of Bibendum, displayed at a fair in Taipei in 2008.
The company used this type of poster as a base for many years, adding its latest products to the table in front of the figure. It is not clear when the word "Bibendum" became the name of the character itself. In 1908 Michelin commissioned Curnonsky to write a column signed "Bibendum". In the 1920s, "Bibendum" was also the title of a magazine published by the Italian branch of the company.[2]

In 1922, Michelin organized a contest to "name the Michelin Tyre Man" in the United States. [3]

The form of Bibendum changed over the years, updating after World War II to align with new advertising needs. O'Galop's logo was based on bicycle tires, wore pince-nez glasses with a cord and smoked a cigar. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bibendum was shown running, and in 1998, on its hundredth anniversary, a reduced version became the new logo of the company. He had given up the cigar and the pince-nez many years earlier. The logo’s simplification reflected the smaller, low-profile tires of modern cars and gave the character a friendlier, more approachable look.

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