So when you fire up your phone today, or when
you're just browsing the internet, you totally
know the drill. Oh, yeah. The targeted ads. Exactly.
You are just constantly bombarded by these highly
targeted algorithmic ads. They know what you
looked at yesterday. They predict what you might
want to buy tomorrow. Right. And they adapt to
your behavior in milliseconds. Yeah. And it feels
incredibly modern, right? Almost inescapable.
We definitely tend to credit that kind of viral
personalized marketing entirely to the digital
age. I mean, we just assume it requires super
computers and endless lines of code to make millions
of people instantly recognize a brand and rush
out to buy it. But if you rewind the clock to
the 1940s and 50s, the ultimate viral marketing
campaign wasn't a machine at all. No, it wasn't.
The algorithm was actually a single fast -talking
man from rural North Carolina. Yeah, so I was
digging through our sources this week, specifically
going down a rabbit hole into this really fascinating
Wikipedia biography of a man named Lee Aubrey
Riggs. Better known to the world as Speed Riggs,
right? Yes, Speed Riggs. And his story completely
refrains how we think about modern media. Just
the nickname Speed tells you you're in for a
wild ride. So our mission today on this deep
dive is to take you through his unbelievable
journey. It really is unbelievable. We're going
straight into the life of a sixth grade dropout
who went from working the dirt in North Carolina
to becoming a national broadcast icon. I mean,
casually rubbing elbows with Frank Sinatra. And
of course, we're going to examine the deeply
complex legacy of the tobacco advertising boom
that he helped pioneer. Because to understand
how one unique voice completely revolutionized
20th century marketing, we really have to look
at the mechanics of obsession. Right. For Speed
Riggs, his media empire did not start in a corporate
boardroom. It started with this relentless, almost
irrational compulsion. Okay, let's unpack this
origin. Riggs was born in 1907 in Silverdale,
North Carolina. Tiny community. Very tiny. Rural
on Slow County. His father, Mark, was a tobacco
and truck farmer, and young Lee Aubrey Riggs
was fully expected to just work those fields.
Which was the norm back then. Yeah, in fact,
he dropped out of school in the sixth grade just
to assist his dad with the crops. But the thing
is, he absolutely hated. the work. He really
did. He felt zero satisfaction pulling things
out of the dirt. He desperately wanted out. What's
fascinating here is that the catalyst for his
escape happened when he was just 14 years old.
He visited the Faison Produce Auction in Sampson
County. Oh, wow. And if you, the listener, have
never been to a live old school agricultural
auction, you have to picture this intense, overwhelming
sensory overload. I'm just picturing chaos, like
people shouting over each other, aggressive hand
signals, buyers cutting each other off. Exactly.
It's a highly chaotic environment, and it's designed
to move perishable goods as fast as humanly possible.
But for this 14 -year -old kid, it wasn't noise
at all. It was music. Yeah, the sources note
he was completely mesmerized by the auctioneers.
He actually described their cadence as this staccatoed
style. noting how they almost seemed to be humming
Yankee Doodle as they spoke. Yankee Doodle. I
love that. And he internalized that rhythm immediately.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It wasn't just a casual
interest. It fundamentally rewired his brain.
I mean, he bypassed formal education entirely
and threw himself into this intense self -directed
mimicry. Right, because he was a sixth grade
dropout. Exactly. The texts detail how he would
walk up and down the rural road practicing his
auctioneer chant by literally selling whatever
he saw. Wait, like what would he sell? He would
sell the fence posts. He'd sell mailboxes. He
would just rapid fire, sell the pine trees as
he rode by them. That is such a hilarious visual.
Just a teenager speed talking to a pine tree,
you know, trying to get top dollar from a squirrel.
Yeah, but his dad did not find it funny at all.
Oh, I bet. The constant rapid fire babbling was
just driving his father crazy. His dad actually
threatened to beat him if he didn't stop making,
quote, that bunch of noise. No, it's like a modern
teenager obsessively practicing electric guitar
in the garage until their fingers bleed. That
is a perfect comparison. It's just a pure unadulterated
drive for mastery. The parents hate the noise
but the kid can't stop. And when you look at
the psychology of expertise you often find this
exact kind of friction. Riggs couldn't stop.
He stated that nothing in his life before or
since captivated him more than that chant. So
what did he do when his dad yelled at him? He
would just move out of here shot. At night when
the house was completely quiet he would literally
hide under his bed covers and quietly hum his
auction chants into the dark. Think about the
dedication that takes. Just imagine being 14,
completely obsessed with a skill that has no
guarantee of paying off, just grinding away under
a blanket. But that, under the covers practice,
paid off in a terrifyingly massive way. It really
did. He trained his vocal cords to speak at a
staggering pace of 469 words per minute. Which
is insane. Just for context, you and I are probably
speaking at about like 150 words per minute right
now. He was tripling that. And at the time, that
469 words per minute was actually believed to
be a world record. And that unprecedented speed
landed him his first real job, right? Yeah. At
age 18, he was hired as a produce auctioneer
at that very same face on market. He figured
out early on that if he perfected the skill,
someone would eventually pay him to sell for
them. But the produce market was basically just
the minor leagues for him. He mastered selling
vegetables, sure, but he craved the sheer scale
and the high stakes that he saw in the eyes of
the tobacco auctioneers. He wanted the big leagues.
Exactly. To get there, he had to jump to a much
larger, much more ruthless stage, the tobacco
warehouse. And to really grasp the environment
Riggs was stepping into. We need to look at why
these massive tobacco warehouses even existed
in the first place. Right. Back in the late 1800s,
the agricultural industry in Virginia and the
Carolinas shifted to what was called the loose
leaf auction system. OK, wait, if I'm a farmer
back then, isn't it significantly easier to just
pack all my crops into a giant barrel and sell
the barrel? Like, loose leaves sound like a logistical
nightmare to transport. It was definitely harder
to transport, but the barrel system was fundamentally
broken by fraud. Really? How so? Well, previously,
Tobacco was packed and sold in these massive
barrels called hogsheads. But swindlers realized
the corporate buyers couldn't see the bottom
of the barrel. Oh no, I see where this is going.
Yeah, so they would put a layer of premium, high
quality tobacco on top and then fill the bottom
with garbage. Like actual garbage. Rotten leaves,
dirt. sometimes literal rocks, and they'd sell
the whole hogshead at a premium. Wow, so the
giant corporations were basically getting scammed
by local farmers. Continually. So the loose -leaf
system was instituted to stop that exact fraud.
Farmers were forced to bring their crops to warehouses
and arrange them into these visible waist -high
piles on the floor. Okay, so you can see everything.
Exactly. This way, the buyers who were representing
those giant tobacco corporations could visually
inspect the entire product before bidding. But
solving the fraud problem created a massive speed
problem. Because now you aren't selling one giant
barrel. You are selling thousands of individual
little piles. Thousands of them. Here's where
it gets really interesting. The scale of these
warehouses is just mind blowing. Riggs got hired
at the Liberty warehouse in Durham, North Carolina,
and this specific warehouse covered a 2 .5 acre
lot. It was massive. And the speed of commerce
had to explode to keep up with the loose leaf
system. Between 1870 and 1929, the sales per
auction skyrocketed from 75 piles of tobacco
an hour to 400 piles an hour. 400 piles an hour
means the auctioneer is finalizing a sale every
nine seconds. Every nine seconds. That is exhausting
to even think about. It was an absolute spectacle.
These auctions grew into massive circus like
events. They were basically the grand social
gatherings of the South. I read they even held
beauty pageants after the sales, crowning a local
woman as the tobacco. They did, and the high
demand of this environment meant the warehouses
desperately needed highly skilled rapid -fire
auctioneers just to keep the sheer volume of
product moving before it degraded. enter speed
rigs in his early 20s, stepping onto this 2 .5
-acre stage. Yep, here he comes. He was described
as this tall, lanky guy with big ears and a protruding
Adam's apple, and he unleashed that under -the
-covers chant on the corporate buyers. The text
actually spills out his cadence, which is fascinating.
Yeah. He would rhythmically chant, uh, 31 Mueller,
31, one, ah, ha, three, two, two, two, toodle,
toodle, toodle, two. and he handled the warehouse
floor with incredible physical grace, you know,
almost dancing between the piles. But more importantly,
he understood the psychology of the buyers. Right.
He wasn't just doing math out loud. He was orchestrating
high stakes performance art. So wait. Riggs was
officially clocked at 469 words per minute. But
was he actually successful because of that blistering
speed, or was the speed just a distraction? What
do you mean? Like a magician's sleight of hand,
masking his ability to psychologically manipulate
the buyers, because the sources mention a very
specific trick he used. But the ignoring tactic.
Yes. He would deliberately ignore a bidder. He'd
look a corporate buyer dead in the eye, fully
aware the guy wanted to buy the pile, and he
would let the sale go to a rival bidder anyway,
just to make the first guy mad. Yeah, the speed
was the hook. But the psychology was absolutely
the mechanism of his success. That trick you
mentioned is pure behavioral economics. It's
so manipulative. It is. By looking a buyer in
the eye and letting a sale go to a rival, Riggs
manufactured artificial scarcity and bruised
the buyer's ego. Right, because these guys are
super competitive. Exactly. In the next round,
that ignored buyer would bid significantly higher,
often overpaying, just to assert dominance on
the floor. Riggs understood these men weren't
just buying leaves, they were competing for status.
Wow. So pacing, eye contact, and emotional manipulation
dictated the price? Completely. He was basically
conducting an orchestra of corporate wallets
and the rumors of this lanky, lightning -fast
auctioneer started spreading all throughout the
South. Which brings us to the next big leap.
Yeah, how does a local warehouse star translate
into a national broadcast phenomenon? That gap
feels huge. It does. But it happens because he
catches the ear of a corporate titan desperate
to win a brand war. Right. So the American Tobacco
Company had purchased Lucky Strike cigarettes
back in 1905, and they were ruthless, innovative
marketers. By 1917, they launched the famous
It's Toasted slogan. OK, I have to ask, why does
that even matter? Aren't all cigarettes just
dried leaves wrapped in paper? They are, yeah.
But the genius of It's Toasted was differentiation.
in a completely saturated market. Oh, I see.
They claimed their tobacco was toasted during
manufacturing instead of sun dried. Now, it didn't
actually make the product safer or remarkably
different, but it gave the consumer a tangible
reason why their brand was superior. It's all
about the story you tell. Exactly. Then in the
1920s, they pivoted to aggressively targeting
women. They ran widespread campaigns telling
women to quote. reach for a lucky instead of
a sweet, basically pitching the cigarette as
a weight loss aid. And not only was it effective,
it was so effective that the actual candy and
confectioner companies panicked. Oh, they were
terrified. They had to run counter campaigns
claiming you could still eat sweets and stay
thin just to fight off the tobacco marketing.
The power of this advertising was immense. It
really was. By the late 1920s, the president
of the American Tobacco Company, a man named
George Washington Hill, was spending a staggering
$7 million a year on advertisements. And $7 million
in the 1920s is an unfathomable marketing budget.
It's insane. The sources note that the only company
in the entire country spending more on advertising
than American tobacco was General Motors. Wow.
Just cars and cigarettes. Pretty much. But by
the late 1930s, George Washington Hill hit a
wall. The old marketing gimmicks were losing
their appeal. Print coupons and collectible cards
inside the packs just weren't driving the kind
of explosive growth you wanted anymore. They
needed a new gimmick. Right. Lucky strikes were
regaining popularity and were close to outselling
their main rival. Camel. But Hill needed something
entirely new to push them over the edge. He was
sponsoring a national radio show called Your
Hit Parade, but the commercials lacked a certain
magic. Because a static image or a text slogan
on a billboard just doesn't grab you the same
way a human voice does. Exactly. And so in 1937,
news of speed rigs reaches Hill's office in New
York. Hill doesn't just send a letter or make
a phone call. He charters a private train. A
private train. The president of one of the biggest
corporations in America takes a private train
from New York City down to Durham, North Carolina
just to watch this one guy perform his craft
in a humid warehouse. If we connect this to the
bigger picture. This moment really represents
the birth of brand personification of broadcast
media. Oh that makes sense Yeah kill realized
the consumers needed a persona to connect with
the product on a visceral emotional level Radio
was relatively new intimate medium at the time,
right? It's right in your house Exactly when
you hear a human voice breathing and speaking
in your living room your brain processes it differently
than reading text It creates a parasocial relationship.
It feels like a trusted friend is talking to
you So Hale was looking for the auditory embodiment
of speed, efficiency, and southern tobacco authenticity.
Nailed it. Imagine the culture shock of that
meeting though. It is exactly like a major streaming
network executive today flying out to a farm
in the middle of nowhere to hand a multi -million
dollar contract to a viral TikTok star. It's
the exact same dynamic. Hill watches Riggs work
the 2 .5 acre floor for one single day. Afterwards,
he sits him down and says, like what you got?
How'd you like to go to New York with me and
be on the radio? And Riggs actually hesitated
at first. Really? Yeah, he loved his life in
the warehouse. I mean, he was a king in that
environment. But Hill followed up with a letter
pleading with him to guest appear on the show,
which had been strategically renamed Your Lucky
Strike Hit Parade. Clever. Very. And Riggs finally
agreed to make the trip. So on December 27, 1937,
he makes his radio debut. He unleashes his lightning
-fast auctioneer chant to millions of listeners
across the country, and he ends it with his soon
-to -be -iconic sign -off, sold to American.
The public response was instantaneous. The sheer
novelty and rhythm of his voice just captivated
the audience. And they never heard anything like
it. Never. Just three months later, he was officially
named the Voice of Lucky Strike. The company
handed him a 22 -year contract paying $550 a
week. Wow. Which was an astronomical sum for
a former farm boy in the 1930s. He became a massive,
undeniable celebrity. And within three years,
that parasocial relationship you mentioned worked
perfectly. His voice helped catapult Lucky Strike
ahead of all other brands by a three -to -one
margin. Get incredible. He spent 33 years doing
this. He appeared on shows with legends like
Jack Benny and Fred Allen. He transitioned into
early time. television advertising alongside
Frank Sinatra. And he wielded that massive platform
with incredible influence, too. During World
War II, Riggs leveraged his fame to help raise
over $17 million in war bonds for the United
States government. That's a huge contribution.
It is. Throughout his career, it is reported
he helped raise a staggering $220 million for
various philanthropic organizations. He was a
remarkably powerful force in shaping American
consumer culture. But, you know, the very medium
that made him a national star was eventually
legislated out of existence. And this brings
us to the final and perhaps most complex chapter
of his life. Right. The landscape of public health
and broadcast media underwent this seismic permanent
shift. The science caught up. Exactly. As medical
research solidified the lethal dangers of smoking,
the government stepped in. In 1970, Congress
passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act.
This officially banned all tobacco advertising
on radio and television Wow. Yeah, so with the
stroke of a pen Riggs's 33 year broadcast career
was over So what does this all mean? Like does
he apologize? Does he pivot away from the industry?
No He never publicly complained about the show
being canceled, but his actions later on spoke
volumes. He certainly did. By 1981, he was actively
helping the tobacco industry run promotions aimed
at winning back smokers. He fiercely opposed
local legislation that was attempting to ban
smoking in public areas, like, you know, restaurants
and airplanes. He even went so far as to publicly
state that he did not believe smoking tobacco
caused lung cancer. He actually said that. Yes.
His exact quote to the press was, anybody can
have cancer of the lungs. He completely denied
the overwhelming scientific consensus. How does
someone defend that? Like, how are you, the listener,
supposed to reconcile this man's legacy? His
ultimate justification for this stance was just
deeply personal. Right. He told reporters, tobacco
has been good to me. Tobacco helped me climb
out of poverty. All my success I owe to tobacco.
This raises an important question, though. When
we look at Riggs' denial of the health risks,
we are looking at a profound textbook example
of cognitive dissonance. Oh, absolutely. The
human mind struggles incredibly hard to hold
two conflicting truths simultaneously. The truths
for Riggs were, I am a good person who helps
charities, and my life's work promotes a product
that kills millions. Those cannot exist in the
same brain easily. No, they can't. Because he
explicitly credited tobacco for lifting him out
of rural poverty, giving a sixth grade dropout,
a life of extreme wealth, fame, and the ability
to do massive philanthropic good, acknowledging
its lethal nature, would mean invalidating his
entire existence. It's a defense mechanism. He
couldn't condemn the system that rescued him,
even when the evidence was undeniably clear.
I mean, think about a time your own livelihood
or social standing depended on something you
knew deep down was morally gray. How hard is
it to admit you're playing for the wrong team?
Exactly. It's incredibly difficult. And the contradiction
becomes even starker when you look at how he
spent his later years. Right. He took his immense
wealth and moved to Fullerton, California. There
he established your community fund. This was
a non -profit organization entirely dedicated
to teaching skilled labor, specifically hands
-on crafts like furniture making to youths with
learning handicaps. So he is literally using
the millions he made selling a deadly product
to teach handicapped children how to build better
futures. Yeah. It is a wildly stark contradiction.
In 1982, his home state of North Carolina even
honored him with a Speed Rigs Day to celebrate
both his contributions to the agricultural industry
and his extensive charity work. He was still
very much beloved. He eventually passed away
in 1987 from congestive heart failure at the
age of 79. And in 2003, he was inducted into
the North Carolina Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Today, his name might not be known in every household,
but his influence on the mechanics of media remains
deeply embedded in the culture. It is said that
whenever a modern auctioneer throws a bit of
flair, zest, or rhythm into their chant to captivate
a room, they are, whether they know it or not,
directly mimicking Lee Aubrey's speed rigs. We
started with a sixth grade dropout hiding under
his medcovers, humming a rapid fire chant into
the dark so his dad wouldn't beat him. Incredible.
And we ended with the voice of an empire, a man
who essentially pioneered the aggressive, personality
-driven advertising that saturates every screen
and speaker in our world today. He proved that
a human connection, delivered with the right
pacing and confidence, could bypass rational
thought and move markets on a global scale. Which
leaves us with a final thought for you to chew
on. Speedrigs was essentially the ultimate human
algorithm of his time. He used cadence, speed,
and psychology to captivate millions, bypassing
their logic to sell them an entire lifestyle.
As you go about your day -to -day and you scroll
through your feeds, listen to your audio, or
watch your screens, look closely at the media
you consume, Who or what is the speed rigs of
your current media diet? What voices are enchanting
you into buying things? And are you paying attention
to the chant? Thank you so much for joining us
on this deep dive into the archives. We'll catch
you next time.