Photo: Oscar Mayer (Composite)
Pour one out for the Wienermobile, arguably the most iconic and time-enduring promotional vehicle in the United States. Oscar Mayer's hot dog-shaped vehicle is no more.
That's a very dramatic intro, but it serves to point out that the change is unprecedented – if not as dramatic as we made it out to be.
For the first time in its long and colorful history, the Wienermobile is getting a rebrand. It will no longer be known by this famous name but as the Frankmobile to celebrate – and promote – the 100% Beef Franks from Oscar Mayer and a new recipe debuting just ahead of the summer season. Everything else about the vehicle that was tied to the name is also getting a new moniker to reflect the upgrade.
Oscar Mayer talks of ushering in "a new era" for the Wienermobile, but as Juliet once thought out loud, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Just put "hot dog" instead of "rose." The Wienermobile will still be around and still have the same shape it's had since 1936 when it first started roaming the streets of Chicago, but it will now travel under a different name.
All six vehicles on the fleet will also be getting new sassy decals, including one that reads "please don’t lick," as a reminder to hot dog lovers not to take anything too seriously in life. Except for hot dogs, of course. Drivers and volunteers traveling onboard the vehicles to spread the joy and the love of hot dogs, known before as the Hotdoggers, will go by Frankfurters. They will continue to hand out hot dog-shaped whistles – now called Frank Whistles, instead of Wiener Whistles.
TheWienermobile Frankmobile of today is similar to the one Oscar Mayer debuted in 1936, but longer, with higher performance, and better equipped for interacting with crowds. It's based on a redesign from 2004 with a Chevrolet chassis with a 6-liter Vortec V8 engine that develops 300 hp and is 27 feet long, 11 feet tall, and eight feet wide (8.2 x 3.3 x 2.4 meters).
The original Wienermobile was only 13 feet (3.9 meters) long and served the initial purpose of "bring[ing] joy to people" during the Great Depression. It was retired in 1977 and brought back in 1988 with an upgrade that resembles today's vehicle: long fiberglass body with modern features inside like microwave ovens, packed fridges, phones, and stereo systems that played 21 versions of the Weiner jingle.
Today, Oscar Mayer has six such vehicles traveling across the country at all times, regularly hiring new batches of Hotdoggers to drive them and interact with the crowds. The art of physical advertising may be on its way to becoming a lost form of art thanks to the Internet, but the Wienermobile is holding tight.
For the first time in its long and colorful history, the Wienermobile is getting a rebrand. It will no longer be known by this famous name but as the Frankmobile to celebrate – and promote – the 100% Beef Franks from Oscar Mayer and a new recipe debuting just ahead of the summer season. Everything else about the vehicle that was tied to the name is also getting a new moniker to reflect the upgrade.
Oscar Mayer talks of ushering in "a new era" for the Wienermobile, but as Juliet once thought out loud, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Just put "hot dog" instead of "rose." The Wienermobile will still be around and still have the same shape it's had since 1936 when it first started roaming the streets of Chicago, but it will now travel under a different name.
All six vehicles on the fleet will also be getting new sassy decals, including one that reads "please don’t lick," as a reminder to hot dog lovers not to take anything too seriously in life. Except for hot dogs, of course. Drivers and volunteers traveling onboard the vehicles to spread the joy and the love of hot dogs, known before as the Hotdoggers, will go by Frankfurters. They will continue to hand out hot dog-shaped whistles – now called Frank Whistles, instead of Wiener Whistles.
The
The original Wienermobile was only 13 feet (3.9 meters) long and served the initial purpose of "bring[ing] joy to people" during the Great Depression. It was retired in 1977 and brought back in 1988 with an upgrade that resembles today's vehicle: long fiberglass body with modern features inside like microwave ovens, packed fridges, phones, and stereo systems that played 21 versions of the Weiner jingle.
Today, Oscar Mayer has six such vehicles traveling across the country at all times, regularly hiring new batches of Hotdoggers to drive them and interact with the crowds. The art of physical advertising may be on its way to becoming a lost form of art thanks to the Internet, but the Wienermobile is holding tight.
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