Nipper is one of the most famous trademarks: a real story

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Many emblems are well known to everyone - for example, a bitten Apple apple or a jumping Puma beast. However, there is an emblem, perhaps not so famous, but very beloved and having a long history. This is a figure of Nipper - a dog looking into the bell of a gramophone. This image is more than 100 years old, and it is called the "Voice of its master."

In 1887, the English artist Francis Barro received an unusual inheritance from his brother - Edison's phonograph with cylinders on which the voice of the deceased was recorded, and a small dog named Nipper. A year later, the artist depicted a dog listening to the voice of the owner from the phonograph in the picture.

The painting was called “The Dog Watching and Listening to the Phonograph,” and Barro offered it to a number of record companies, but no one was interested in the proposal. Then the artist gave the picture a different name: "The voice of its owner." And 11 years after the creation of the work, the Gramophone Company bought the picture, however, provided that Edison’s phonograph will be replaced with a more modern device. Barro paid 100 pounds.

Advertising campaigns that used the Nipper image were a resounding success. The dog adorned every record released by the Gramophone Company, and soon the company itself became known as HMV (His Master’s Voice - “Voice of its owner”).

In the United States, Nipper expected even greater success. The company Victor bought the license for the image of the dog, and the dog became so famous that the plate advertisement read: “Look for the dog!”

Nipper is famous to this day. In the United States, it is still the symbol of RCA, the successor to Victor. And in the UK, the image of Nipper is used by EMI, which advertises music stores, which are still called HMV.