<P> Bibendum, commonly referred to in English as the Michelin Man or Michelin Tyre Man, is the symbol of the Michelin tire company . Introduced at the Lyon Exhibition of 1894 where the Michelin brothers had a stand, Bibendum is one of the world's oldest trademarks . The slogan Nunc est bibendum (Drink up) is taken from Horace's Odes (book I, ode xxxvii, line 1). He is also referred to as Bib or Bibelobis . </P> <P> Michelin dominated the French tire industry and was one of the leading advertisers; to this day its famous guidebooks are widely used by travellers . Bibendum was depicted visually as a lord of industry, a master of all he surveyed, and a patriotic expounder of the French spirit . In the 1920s, Bibendum urged Frenchmen to adopt America's superior factory system, but to patriotically avoid using the "inferior" products of those factories . As automobiles diffused to the middle classes, Michelin advertising likewise shifted downscale, and its restaurant and hotel guides likewise covered a broader range of price categories . </P> <P> While attending the Universal and Colonial Exposition in Lyon in 1894, Édouard and André Michelin noticed a stack of tires that suggested to Édouard the figure of a man without arms . Four years later, André met French cartoonist Marius Rossillon, popularly known as O'Galop, who showed him a rejected image he had created for a Munich brewery--a large, regal figure holding a huge glass of beer and quoting Horace's phrase "Nunc est bibendum". André immediately suggested replacing the man with a figure made from tires . Thus O'Galop transformed the earlier image into Michelin's symbol . Today, Bibendum is one of the world's most recognised trademarks, representing Michelin in over 150 countries . </P> <P> The 1898 poster showed him offering the toast Nunc est bibendum to his scrawny competitors with a glass full of road hazards, with the title and the tag C'est à dire: À votre santé . Le pneu Michelin boit l'obstacle ("That is to say, to your health . The Michelin tire drinks up obstacles"). The implication is that Michelin tires will easily take on road hazards . The company used this basic poster format for fifteen years, adding its latest products to the table in front of the figure . It is unclear when the word "Bibendum" came to be the name of the character himself . At the latest, it was in 1908, when Michelin commissioned Curnonsky to write a newspaper column signed "Bibendum". In 1922, Michelin ran a contest for "naming the Michelin Tire Man" in the United States . </P>

What is the michelin man supposed to be