Bully for Them
discovers how
an advertising campaign for Spanish brandy came to represent
something else: an entire country.
The road to the workshop isn't paved. The old
Volvo clunks along
the rocks and shards of stone lining the alleyway. When the car
stops, two tiny dogs chase each other in a race to reach it. Their
yapping obscures the sound of a bright blue corrugated metal door
sliding sideways to open. A courtyard is revealed, but there aren't
any beds of flowers or paths of manicured grass, only a gravel lot
and a low-lying cinder-block building. From every vantage point,
you can see the familiar silhouette. Black. Robust.
Unmistakable.
Here, in a battered workshop rife with tools and tradition, the
heart of the Osborne Group, and some say of
Spain itself, resides.
Here, in El Puerto de Santa María, in the sherry triangle of Spain.
Here, on the outskirts of town, miles from where the corporate
offices are. It's the Tejada family workshop, an unassuming place,
where a most imposing figure is forged - the Osborne bull, the
symbol that rose from ad to icon.
What is now the Osborne Group was founded in 1772 as a producer of
fine sherry and brandy. Since then, the company has added numerous
varieties and vintages of wine to their offerings, as well as other
business interests, including bottled water, Iberian pork products,
and the Mesón 5J restaurant chain. The business continues to be
family owned and operated. And despite its other endeavors, wines
and spirits - including sherry, brandy, and port - continue to be
the central focus of the company.
Osborne's products are distributed in more than 40 countries, and
in 2005, the company increased its 2004 business by 6.4 percent.
Naturally, the creation of Osborne products in Spain and the vast
distribution of them outside the country are important to the
Spanish economy. But the products and the international business
they have created as exports are only part of what Osborne has
given its homeland. Strangely, and quite unintentionally, Osborne
also gave them what has grown to become the symbol for an entire
nation - the profile of a proud and virile bull.
The now readily recognizable image didn't debut to such fame, of
course. In 1956, Osborne hired commercial artist Manolo Prieto to
create a logo for use on the bottles of its Veterano brandy. The
company wanted something representative of Osborne and its native
country, as well as something that would easily translate as a
billboard. That is, something simple, powerful, and memorable.
Enter the bull. Prieto penned a silhouette that necessitated no
fine detail. Its black coloring and easily decipherable features
made it ideal for the bottle and for the roadside. Osborne was
thrilled.
So thrilled, in fact, that the shape of the Osborne bull remains
true to the original Prieto drawing even to this day. El Toro has,
however, gotten bigger and stronger over the years. Not long after
the bull existed as a line drawing, it was transformed into
roadside signage. In 1957, the very first bull-shaped billboard -
or "bullboard" - was erected. It was only 13 feet high and was cut
from a single sheet of wood. At the year's end, there were a total
of 16 bulls in place. But after only a few years, it became clear
that they couldn't weather, well, the weather. The elements made
quick work of battering the timber bulls. That's when Félix Tejada
entered the picture. Osborne hired the metalúrgico (Spanish for
"metalsmith") to engineer a bull that would be as strong physically
as it was emblematically.
What he designed is a remarkable feat of engineering. The Osborne
bulls found in Spain today weigh nearly 9,000 pounds apiece, and
each measures almost 45 feet high - the average height of a
four-story building. El Toro is a massive jigsaw puzzle of sorts,
made from seventy 35-by-75-inch pieces of 5/64-inch-thick iron;
1,000 bolts; four scaffolding-like turrets held in place with bases
that, combined, weigh 55 tons; and 20 gallons of black paint.
Tejada is both the brains and the brawn behind the entire endeavor;
his family workshop is the backdrop for each bull's "birth."
When Tejada explains the process of engineering the design,
crafting the pieces, and building the bulls, he speaks with the
pride of a father. No wonder - until five years ago, he himself
made all the bullboards, fashioning each new bull according to his
design plan, forging the pieces and the scaffolding in his
workshop. Then, along with his team, he assembled each at its final
roadside home.
"We put all the pieces together with fire. So we have buckets of
water prepared. We've never had an accident," Tejada says with
well-deserved satisfaction. It might sound old-school, and, well,
it is. But Tejada doesn't believe in fixing something that's not
broken. Osborne apparently abides by the same tenet. "[The
Osbornes] have never bothered me," Tejada says. "Lots of things in
the business have changed. But they've never asked me to change a
thing." The people of Spain clearly value tradition.
That, of course, includes those traditions inspired by the bulls.
Graduating marines in El Puerto climb the bulls, crowning them with
their graduation caps. In Tejada's own family, whenever a child
reaches the age of seven, he or she climbs up through the turrets
to the top of the 45-foot bull that sits on the road leading to the
town of Conil de la Frontera. And all throughout Spain, people
paint the bullboards, decorate them, climb them, you name it - and
it rarely fails to make the paper.
From day one, Tejada has remained true to his original engineering
plan for the bulls. Only the eight bulls that stand in the rotunda
of El Puerto de Santa María are different from the rest. They are
only 13 feet high and weigh a mere 2,650 pounds. They also have
paneling covering their scaffolding to keep people from climbing
them. That's another brainstorm belonging to Tejada, whose skill
does not go unnoticed outside of Osborne. One local architect
brought his students to Tejada's workshop so that Tejada could
explain the design behind the bulls. Over the years, other
architecture students have come to the workshop to incorporate the
making of the bull into their final project.
Tejada has officially been retired for five years now. His sons,
Félix Jr., Jesús, and Pedro, and his nephew Juan Antonio Sánchez
have taken over as the primary bull makers. But Tejada still goes
to the workshop to help them from time to time. "I'm an old
bullfighter, you know," he says with a sly smile. As Tejada
interacts with his sons and nephew, it's easy to see that he simply
can't be away from any family member for very long. That, of
course, includes the bulls; those who have a hand in creating them
say that they consider the bull one of their brothers. A good one,
too, explains José Gómez Ariza, an Osborne family friend who does
public-relations work for the company. "He's perfect. We don't have
to feed him, but he feeds us," Ariza jokes.
But things weren't always so good for the extended bovine family
member. In 1962, a law was passed mandating that billboards be at
least 400 feet from the side of the road. At that time, there were
hundreds of 23-foot-tall bulls dotting the Spanish landscape, and
they all had to come down. Instead of simply moving them, Osborne
decided to dispense with the originals and to install much larger
(and fewer) bulls in order to ensure that motorists could still see
them at the newly regulated distances. Osborne increased the bull's
size to 45 feet, the height it is now, and used the opportunity to
make one additional change. The bulls were initially painted with
the words Veterano Osborne. This time around, though, they decided
to paint the words Osborne - Sherry & Brandy on the bulls,
hoping to make what was the symbol for one of their products a
symbol for all of them.
In 1988, the roadside homes of their adopted brethren were again
threatened. Another law regarding roadside signage was passed, and
this one prohibited advertising next to public highways altogether.
In hopes of skirting the measure, Osborne had the writing on the
bulls painted over. Although it brought them reprieve for a short
time, it wasn't long before they were fined and instructed to
remove the bulls. That's when things got really interesting. It
suddenly became clear that the bulls had a much larger extended
family than Osborne could have ever imagined. Overwhelming numbers
of Spaniards protested the removal of what they had come to think
of as "their" bull, arguing that it had become a vital part of the
Spanish roadside and, in fact, of Spain itself.
Quickly, the media took hold of the story, and for nearly four
years, vigorous public debate ensued. People all across Spain
signed petitions and spoke out in support of the bulls' continued
existence. Osborne protested the fine and the orders of removal in
court. And in December of 1997, much to Osborne's delight and
surprise, the Spanish Supreme Court acknowledged that the Osborne
bull is indeed integral to the Spanish countryside - so much so
that citizens identify themselves with it. In the words of the
court, "It has gone beyond its initial advertising purpose and has
become part of the landscape. As a result, it is declared a part of
Spain's National Heritage."
Today there are 90 bulls and counting. El Toro is recognizable not
only to the people of Spain but also to people all over the world.
It has become synonymous with the Iberian country, regardless of
whether people know of its humble advertising beginnings. Osborne
celebrated the bull's 50th anniversary in 2006 and 2007 with Art
Bulls for Charity, a campaign to raise funds for Share Our
Strength's fight against childhood hunger. Noted personalities with
connections to Spain - visual and performing artists, chefs,
actors, fashion designers, and the like, including actors Antonio
Banderas and
Angie Harmon and chefs Jacques Pépin and Ferran Adrià
- decorated three-by-three-foot scale models of the Osborne bull
for exhibition in New York,
Dallas,
Chicago,
San Francisco, Los
Angeles,
Miami, and Washington, D.C. They were then auctioned
online in conjunction with the 2007 Food Network South Beach Wine
and
Food Festival in Miami in late February.
Connecting the Osborne bull and the art world is hardly a stretch. Keith Haring, Javier Mariscal, Juan Gatti, and Luis Mayo, among others, have all paid homage to the bull in their work. In 1964, other prominent artists played an important part in creating the packaging for Osborne’s Conde de Osborne Solera Gran Reserva Brandy: Salvador Dalí was commissioned to design the bottle and label, glass artisans from the Catalan region were responsible for handblowing the prototype for the white glass decanter, and potter Antoni Cumella created the bottle’s indigo ceramic stopper. (The packaging is still in production, available as a limited-edition collector’s item.)
From an unadulterated commercial image to a universally adored national icon — the transformation seems improbable. But when you’re traveling through Spain, it’s hard to imagine a symbol better suited to represent the country and its people. When you’re standing in the Tejada workshop alongside the creators of the bull and hundreds of the familiar figures, it’s impossible to imagine any other people in any other place bringing them to life. It’s as if only from tradition can tradition be born.