When Gene Benedetti was first approached about advertising in 1951, no one could have predicted that a little cow named Clo could bring together a community.
Interview with Gene Benedetti
Back around the 1960s Lee Levenger came to me in Petaluma and said, “I want to do some advertising for you.” He knew that Clover was new in Santa Rosa, and I knew we needed help.
Lee was Clover’s first ad man. I had a lot of respect for him because his mind was always going. He eventually came up with this idea that we should have a billboard. I said, “Lee, you’re crazy. Marin County just voted to eliminate billboards. I don’t want to make enemies with anybody. Billboards aren’t going to be well liked.”
Lee said, “I want to do something totally different. It will be a series, each one featuring a play-on-words. They’re going to be very interesting and people are going to anticipate and enjoy them. There will be no hard sell. It’ll be about happiness and the good things about Clover. I’m going to develop a cow or something that’s a caricature.”
So about two-three weeks later he gave me a call. He had a version, it wasn’t final or anything. In fact, he wouldn’t even get an artist involved until he had some sort of approval from me. So I looked at it, and here was a facsimile of Clo – not really the Clo that we have now or even had then. This was Clo out in a field, and on the top the headline said: “Outstanding in Her Field.” I liked the idea.
So I took it to the board of directors, and after much deliberation it was agreed: Clover would have a cow called Clo and she’d be the star of our new billboard campaign.
