“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner,
That is what I’d truly like to be,
‘Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer weiner,
Everyone would be in love with me.”
Is that the most recognizable commercial jingle? Are you humming it right now? And I apologize since it will likely rattle around your brain for the rest of the day.
Music is so amazing, and probably the most memorable commercials we’ve seen involve music. Here’s another one: “I’d like to buy the world a home, and furnish it with love.” Name that product! I’ll give you a few seconds… Coca-Cola! “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”
Another commercial, another beverage. Do you remember the product advertised with “Like Mike, if I could be like Mike?” This is going way back to when you could only purchase it in glass bottles and there were probably only two colors, orange and yellow. That’s right, it’s the old Gatorade ads featuring Michael Jordan clips, both professionally and inspiring young basketball players.
Can you whistle the theme from the Old Spice commercial? How about sing the words to the Alka-Seltzer jingle? (And you know, especially if you’re male, that you used to use those words to create some righteous bathroom humor!) Can you name the commercial that only uses one word for its promotional song? That’s right – Meow Mix! Meow, meow, meow, meow… Okay, that’s in cat language. We later learn they love tuna, liver, and chicken, so we’d better deliver!
Did you know that Barry Manilow was a jingle writer and provided possibly two of the more memorable ones that have been around a long time and are still in use today? You can hearken back to the early ‘70s when he wrote one for State Farm. You will always know that, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. The reports say Manilow earned a cool $500 for that one. And in a related song, he also wrote these famous words: “I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!” And germs don’t stick on you either!
McDonald’s has used some great music over time. “Bah dah bah bah bah, I’m lovin’ it” apparently hit it big in Germany before translating well to American soil and airwaves. But before that, can you still remember all the words to the Big Mac commercial? “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese…” is the beginning of it. I bet if you try, you can remember the rest!
Kit Kat candy bars have an iconic song that also tends to resonate when you hear it. “Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!” In fact, recent commercials don’t even have words, they just use the sounds of a vending machine to recreate the sound, but I bet everyone watching can sing right along. This jingle was made extra famous on an episode of The Office where the character Andy just couldn’t quite remember all the words. “Break me off a piece of that… Chevrolet…Fancy Feast… applesauce!” Not quite, Nard Dog!
Even more recent commercials have become quickly memorable. Subway launched a special with a commercial that was sure to bring in customers, not just for the price, but for the song they couldn’t remove from their heads! Do you remember how much that foot-long sub cost? That’s right - $5!
And how about Nationwide Insurance? Nationwide might be on your side, but do you, like Peyton Manning, find yourself putting any word combinations together to match the commercial jingle? “Do I really look like this?” “Chicken parm, you taste so good.” “That’s a first-rate queso dip.” “Recalculating shortest route.” How about this one – “When will Mark be done with this?”
Let’s go back in time again first. Here are some more classics sure to whet your whistle. If I’m a Pepper and you’re a Pepper, what’s he? Why, he’d like to be a Pepper too! And something to eat with that? “Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs. What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs?” I won’t finish the rest of that since it doesn’t work so well today, though we know that even kids with chicken pox love them!
At the end of the day, I don’t want to grow up and away from these. You know why? Because I’m a Toys-R-Us kid. Oh wait, they’re going out of business. I do know that the best part of waking up on Saturday mornings was not Folger’s in my cup, but the awesome commercials that I saw with many of those cartoons I wrote about last week!
That’s enough advertising. And now back to our regularly scheduled program!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is promulgate, which means to teach publicly, as in, “The wise owl promulgated that it only took three licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!