New mascot in Kansas City is quite salty. Morton Salt Girl finding new fans here
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- Morton relocated its headquarters to Building 40 Corporate Woods in Overland Park.
- Company installed large Morton Salt Girl signage and a 16th-floor penthouse office.
- Mascot promoted brand at Chiefs tailgate; fans posed in a Photo Bus KC booth.
A few weeks ago in September as fall weather began to descend on Kansas City, Kat Manz and her husband loaded up their kids and headed out on one of their hometown adventures.
This one took them south from their home near Gladstone to Johnson County, where they got lost in Corporate Woods and pulled into a parking lot to turn around.
“And then we just happened to look up and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t even realize that was here in Kansas City,’” Manz told The Star.
They found themselves in the parking lot of the new home of Morton Salt.
With little fanfare, the famous salt company earlier this year relocated its headquarters into the top two floors of Building 40 Corporate Woods at 9401 Indian Creek Pkwy, where the penthouse space on the 16th floor offers expansive views overlooking Overland Park.
The company brought its famous mascot — the beloved Morton Salt Girl, who every year inspires who knows how many Halloween costumes.
In 2014, the year she celebrated her 100th birthday, the public voted her into the Advertising Week Walk of Fame on New York’s Madison Avenue, making the Morton Salt Girl the first female icon to be inducted.
She’s already bigger than life in Kansas City. She can be seen on huge signs hanging near the top of the largest multi-tenant office building in Overland Park.
She announced her presence with a public outing last month at one of the most boisterous places in the metro.
To let people know that Morton is the official salt of the Kansas City Chiefs, the Morton Salt Girl met football fans at a tailgate party before the Chiefs-Raiders game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
The guys from The Photo Bus KC tricked out their refurbished Volkswagen bus in the same dark blue as the recognizable Morton Salt container for the event. Chiefs fans took pictures inside the photo booth bus and snapped selfies with the costumed mascot.
Her bright yellow dress stood out like the sun in the sea of red Chiefs gear.
K.C. Wolf posed with her too.
“People loved her,” said Photo Bus owner John DePrisco. “I thought it was absolutely perfect.”
There was a line the entire five hours they were there, he said, “and I can’t tell you how many hundreds of selfies were taken with her.”
One of the most recognizable advertising mascots in the country is poised to become a familiar face around Kansas City. (The Star reached out to Morton Salt for comment but received no response.)
Over the coming months her image will pop up on Kansas City’s newest entertainment venue.
Last week Morton announced that its name will go on a 16,000-seat Live Nation venue to be built in Riverside. Renderings show the Morton Salt Girl and her umbrella on the signage.
“Everybody should know and recognize that lady,” Michael Manz told his wife when they wandered into Corporate Woods that day.
Determined not to miss a great photo op, he hustled the kids out of the car and had them pose with their mom in front of a large neon sign of the girl standing in front of the building.
“Found the Morton salt corporate office trying to get to a different park out in Kansas yesterday,” Manz wrote on her Facebook page.
History of an icon
The Morton Salt Girl is no older than 8 and never ages. Her name is said to be Sarah Peldon. She sprang from a routine advertising pitch in 1911, says the Morton website.
“It was the early days of advertising and the company boldly decided it was time for its first national consumer advertising campaign to promote a true breakthrough — Morton’s free flowing salt in a round blue package with a patented pouring spout,” Morton says.
Morton wanted to promote that its salt didn’t cake or clump in humid conditions thanks to an anti-caking agent that allowed it to flow freely.
Ad agency N.W. Ayer & Company was asked to submit a dozen different ads to run in consecutive issues of Good Housekeeping magazine. The ad exec had 12 proposals and three backups for the company’s consideration.
“Sterling Morton, (company founder) Joy Morton’s son and secretary of the newly-formed company, was immediately interested in one of the substitute ads,” the company’s history says.
“It showed a little girl holding an umbrella in one hand to ward off falling rain and, in the other hand, a package of salt tilted back under her arm with the spout open and salt running out.
“Years later, Mr. Morton explained his initial enthusiasm for the ad in this way: ‘Here was the whole story in a picture — the message that the salt would run in damp weather was made beautifully evident.’”
Wanting a short, snappy slogan for the logo, the company turned to the proverb, “it never rains but it pours,” which ultimately became its famous motto: “when it rains it pours.”
The Morton Salt Umbrella Girl and that slogan first appeared on the company’s blue packages of table salt in 1914. She’s undergone a half-dozen dress and hairstyle makeovers over the years that kept her current.
She’s been a blonde. She’s been a brunette. She’s had Shirley Temple curls. Once had pigtails; now she has an Anna Wintour bob. But she’s always worn those Mary Jane shoes.
She was last refreshed in 2014 for her 100th birthday when the company threw 100 parties in 100 cities to mark the milestone.
In 2005 she appeared in MasterCard’s “Icons” commercial during Super Bowl XXXIX that showed famous advertising mascots having dinner together — the Jolly Green Giant, Mr. Peanut, Mr. Clean, the Vlasic Stork and the Pillsbury Doughboy among them.
The company’s history notes that she is so much a part of American daily life that “many people see a resemblance to a sister, cousin, or niece, and they often write us to ask the name of the real person who was the inspiration for the little umbrella girl.”
Over the years customers have peppered Morton with a lot of questions about the girl’s origins.
Fact: There was never a real model for the original Morton Salt Girl, the company says.
Wrigley Field in Morton’s previous home of Chicago threw a centennial celebration for her in 2014 with a “Morton Salt Girl Day” where she threw out the ceremonial first pitch and threw a pinch of salt over her shoulder for good luck — which makes us wonder.
Will she get to take the mound at Kauffman Stadium? Sing the national anthem at a Sporting KC game? Drive the Zamboni at a Mavericks hockey game?
Kat Manz, who has two daughters, was excited to see a new female mascot in Kansas City. Once the new amphitheater goes up next year, she’ll see the Morton Salt Girl on her drive to work downtown.
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