Companies Profiting From or With Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs have had an amazing impact on our culture. Not just pop culture either, even businesses have jumped on the bandwagon of dinosaur appeal. With such incredible creatures, and no intellectual property rights to get in the way, dinosaurs become a cheap, yet powerful marketing tool. It also goes beyond marketing. Some companies have just become synonymous with dinosaurs because of product placement or maybe even one particular product among a sea of other products. Let’s take a look at which businesses are profiting off their association with dinosaurs.
Sinclair Oil
A giant brontosaurs logo makes Sinclair Oil stand out in the field of dinosaur influenced business. The reference to oil being a ‘fossil fuel’ is also kind of funny. Founded back in 1916, this company has been around for over 100 years! Headquartered in Salt Lake City Utah, it is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. You can commonly find a green brontosaurus statue outside of their gas stations. People LOVE to get their pictures taken with or on them, just check Twitter if you don’t believe me.
Toronto Raptors
Sports are big business, and basketball is no exception. The chief mascot of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors is, you guessed it, a Velociraptor. Or maybe a Utahraptor, but it clearly references a dinosaur. Established in Canada in 1993, they played their first season in 1995. The name ‘Raptors’ was one of 2000 submitted entries, and beat out 10 other finalist names. Fun fact, T-Rex was one of the other finalist names as well. Given that Jurassic Park launched in 1993, it’s not hard to believe that a dinosaur culture influence was at an all time high. Four Raptors players have reached the Basketball Hall of Fame, but no championship rings have been passed out yet.
Disney
While dinosaurs aren’t the main attraction at Disney, their dinosaur movies are pretty popular. Starting back in the golden age of Disney, you’ll find dinosaurs in the 1940 release of Fantasia. In 1985 Disney’s Touchstone Films released Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. It’s a live action movie about dinosaurs rumored to be in Africa. The 2000 movie Dinosaur is a common favorite, and easy example. There’s even a ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park devoted to the movie. More recently, The Good Dinosaur continues to show that Disney thinks dinosaurs are still a good money maker. While the movie was made by Pixar studios, Disney has owned the animation studio since 2006.
Universal Pictures
If you have to ask how Universal Pictures is associated with dinosaurs, then it’s time to come out from under that rock you’ve been living under for the last 25 years. The entire Jurassic Park franchise has been done by Universal Studios. As with Disney, there’s a Jurassic Park ride at the Universal Studios theme park. The animation department at Universal also pushes the dinosaur theme with movies like We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story and references like the T-Rex in the Minions film. Perhaps the most famous in the animated adventure department from Universal though is probably The Land Before Time series. All 14 of them.
Jeep
While this vehicle is quite famous all on its own, being indirectly featured across the Jurassic franchise movies has made this a fan favorite. Jeeps begin the dinosaur experience, picking up the visitors from the helipad at the beginning of Jurassic Park. Who can forget the Jeep chase scene with the Tyrannosaurus Rex? There are Jeeps throughout the entire series, most recently being featured in Jurassic World. Pictures of Jurassic Park skinned Jeeps across the world flood Twitter and Reddit regularly.
Colorado Rockies’ Dinger
This is actually kind of an amazing story. Back in 1994, Coors Field was under construction when a dinosaur egg was found on site. When the egg was excavated, an unidentified dinosaur rib was found! Being that Colorado is well known for it’s dinosaur fossils, this became the foundation for the Colorado Rockies dinosaur mascot Dinger. Dinger is baseball slang for a home run, and takes the form of a triceratops. There is some controversy among fans though over the mascot. Some aren’t a fan of its appearance, wanting it to be an either more ferocious like a dinosaur, or something more along the cut-and-cuddly line. Right now they don’t think Dinger looks like – anything.
Oracle + Bronto
Back in 2002, Bronto software was born. It is headquartered in a renovated tobacco barn in Durham North Carolina in the United States. The name came from one of the founder’s love of dinosaurs, obviously a reference to Brontosaurus. Today, Bronto + Oracle provides cloud-based commerce marketing solutions to large businesses, as well as being an email service provider to e-commerce retailers. They remain headquartered in Durham in the US, and have expanded to offices in London, United Kingdom and Sydney, Australia. Bronto software was bought by Netsuite in 2015, giving it today’s name of Oracle + Bronto.
Dinosaurs Are Powerful Business Tools
As you can see, dinosaurs are good for business. They cross all kinds of demographics from men and women, children and adults, and even political parties. Some companies are a little more direct with their marketing like Sinclair and the Tornoto Raptors, and some like Jeep just happen to be famous by even the smallest association. Regardless, people like you and me eat this stuff up. As long as that remains the case, companies will continue to having dinosaurs lead the vanguard of their product lines and logos.
