The company announced a brand competition in 1930. 
The winner proposal was never used.  The elephant secretly slipped in at deadline. Until 1930 the brand for M. Peterson & Søn AS was by all a violin. The management wanted a renewal and announced a competition which should result in the recognition of the brand in the future. 

A winner was elected, but not any brand.  One of the employees had delivered the elephant suggestion just after the competition was finished and become the winner at overtime. In August 14th 1944 had the elephant been approved as a brand and granted a patent by the patent leadership - and has with one exception of a period in 1970 and 1980 been the identification character of the Peterson Group.

The elephant is formed as the letter of MOSS

More animals

The brand was probably inspired by other customers from the same period that used animals as the company brand.  Borregaard used e.i. a bear.  Ranheim Papirfabrikk had an ice bear and Skjærdalen bruk had a moose as their brands.  Besides was Kraft paper an important product for Peterson, and therefore the elephant was a good choice.

Paper Reel

Many of us have discovered that the elephant was formed as the letter of MOSS, where the Peterson Group's main office is situated - then as now -.  What the few of us know is that the log in the trunk is not a log, but a Paper Reel.