Treasured as a national institution, the Burma Vita Company offered numerous promotions, including jingle writing contests and prizes for numbers of jars saved. For 900 Empty Jars Burma-Shave A grocery store owner from Appleton, Wisconsin, who managed to secure 900 jars from his customers took up the challenge. Burma-Shave sent him to Mars, Germany. By the early 1960s, interstate highways changed the pace of American travel. Americans drove farther and faster than ever before.
Some scholars believe that the increasing pace of American life doomed the signs.
Others believe the cause was the loss of independent management when the Philip Morris Company purchased the Burma Vita Company in 1963. By 1966, with a great loss in market share, the Burma-Shave brand was retired. In 1997, the brand name was purchased by the American Safety Razor Company and reintroduced as a nostalgic line of shaving paraphernalia intended for men over the age of forty-five.eal of exotic products and the relationship between colonialism and trade. The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles.