The Princess Promotion
Telephone History July 29th. 2008, 11:05am
Marketing a product or service has often featured a mascot of some sort, something that can serve to etch the product into the public consciousness. Remember the oil company slogan and mascot from the ’60s, “Put a tiger in your tank”? That promotion by Esso (or Enco or Humble, depending on where you lived), with its cartoon-like tiger, was a huge success. I remember well the “tiger tails” that were given away with fill-ups, intended to be looped over the gas filler neck of customer’s cars. It seemed that every car on the road had one, and a surprising number of unfortunates actually put the tail inside their gas tank! But I digress. We’re here to talk about an entirely different promotion, the one that hailed the introduction of Bell’s Princess Phone.
A variety of promos were used, including airplanes pulling banners that announced, “The Princess Is Here”, but the most popular made 
use of “real” princesses. Selecting young ladies to portray the princess was a natural, and every part of the Bell System seems to have had their own representative. These ladies were catapulted into royalty from a number of sources, some being the daughter of an employee. But most of them worked for Bell themselves in some capacity, often pulled from the ranks of the service reps. The marketing tactic was used aggressively, and the princesses found themselves extremely busy with personal appearances. Such appearances were made at department stores, car dealerships, supermarkets, and even florists and record stores. These events were well received, as the public was well aware of the Princess Phone’s arrival, and anxious to see one in person. To sweeten the deal, some stores even had drawings for free Princess Phones. Mary Lou Donohoe, the Princess representing Lowell, Massachusetts, was so overwhelmed with obligations that several stand-in princesses were used to take up the slack.
The photos shown here were published in the September 1960 issue of The Telephone Bay Stater, published for the Massachusetts employees of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. That issue is loaded with articles and photos that illustrate the Princess promotions, more than could be included here, and I’ll be sharing those photos over the next few weeks. To conclude, I want to introduce the three Princess shown. From top to bottom, they are: Karen Wood (with Rosalie Manzi), Merilyn Berry and Dorcas Parson. All hail the Princess!
