In a field where it was hard for any one merchant to stand out, PC Connection’s ads were vastly more distinctive than the competition’s. They might even one of the most memorable elements of any given issue of a magazine—yes, including the editorial material.
It wasn’t because of the portion dedicated to the business at hand. As you can see from this sample page from the October 29, 1991 PC Magazine, that aspect of a PC Connection advertisement was not radically different from a PC Zone or Micro Warehouse ad.
No, what made PC Connection ads unique was the imagery of anthropomorphic raccoons, the work of an illustrator named Erick Ingraham. Here they are in that same 1991 PC Magazine ad.
If you inspect the art closely enough, you’ll spot some boxes of vintage 1991 software, including The Microsoft Office (which, like TheFacebook.com, eventually lost its “The”). But they’re Easter eggs in a scene that is mostly about raccoons making pies—assisted by a bunny rabbit and a beaver—and playing what I assume is folk music. The piece looks like an illustration from a classy children’s book. That made sense, since Ingraham’s work in that field helped him secure his PC Connection assignment.
What on Earth was this beautifully done, homey scene—part Beatrix Potter, part Norman Rockwell—doing in a mail-order ad for computer products? The text below, by copywriter David Blistein, acknowledged that people might find it puzzling. It explained that PC Connection was based in tiny Marlow, New Hampshire (population 567) and prided itself on good customer service. The point of the characters, it said, was to add “a human touch to high tech.”
It worked. And the fact that Ingraham’s art and Blistein’s copy changed in each new ad gave magazine readers a reason to stop and pay attention. (Even Micro Warehouse’s Kerry didn’t do anything but sit there leaning on a monitor.)
The golden age of PC Connection raccoon ads began in 1983 and ended well over thirty years ago. After that, the characters retained a diminished presence in the company’s marketing into the early years of this century. Then they almost wholly vanished. They have, however, remained lodged somewhere in the back of my brain. That was true even though I caught only the tail end of their heyday. (I was an Amiga fanatic until 1991, and made a point of ignoring the Microsoft-centric magazines where PC Connection advertised.)
Recently, I was shocked to find that nobody has ever told the raccoons’ story. Hence this article.