‘The Real Thing’? The language of advertising slogans | OxfordWords blog Home > ‘The Real Thing’? The language of advertising slogans ‘The Real Thing’? The language of advertising slogans ‘The Antidote to Civilization’ – so stated the famous Club Med advertising slogan. The highly educated always claim to be immune to the blandishments of advertising slogans. At best they are clever word and image manipulations for the masses; at worst, they are a torture rack for grammar and language. Great literature they are not. (The sloganeering mode is very addictive!) Love them or hate them, stand aloof from them or engage with them, claim immunity from their persuasions or celebrate their memorability, there is no denying that the language of advertising slogans is pervasive, influential, and ubiquitous . It is estimated that the average western consumer is subject to 5,000 daily advertising messages across all forms of media. This makes it the most universal of creative literary forms. What’s it for? What is the purpose of the advertising slogan? A clue lies in the etymology of the word advertise itself – which has its root in the Latin verb ‘advertere’ – to turn towards.

Slogans are a way of capturing the attention and taking the attention onwards to a predetermined destination. It was not always so. Advertising’s early words and images were simply to convey information: to describe products, how they worked, what they did, and their availability. Its modern role as an instrument of persuasion, as a literary form to convey meaning and significance, came later in the 20th century. Remember remember… To keep the consumer ‘turning towards’ the desired destination, the advertising slogan has to first of all grab attention. Then it must embed itself in the memory. To state the obvious, advertising words must be memorable. To be memorable, the words, phrases, and slogans must be repeated. (Even the word used for the basic text of an advertising message – copy – connotes replication and reproduction). To be recalled and repeated, to be passed along to others, to be used and reused, is the ultimate destination – the golden journey of an advertising slogan passing from the advertisers’ creative notebook to the nirvana of becoming a popular expression.

Take ‘the customer is always right’ for a neat example of something that began life as an advertising slogan for Selfridges Store in 1910 and now is ingrained in the shopper’s lexicon . All success in advertising is predicated in being alive and retained in the memory. The human memory, however, can only store and recall finite numbers of slogans. A sure-fire route to success is to make the slogan a reductionist art form. ‘Think Small’, the Classic Volkswagen slogan in the USA in the 1960s, did precisely this, in encapsulating the essence of the message, its meaning and its relevance. It is essential in a noisy and crowded world that a slogan stands out. Take the Apple slogan of the 1990s ‘Think Different’ – which used the adjective different rather than the expected (and more grammatically correct) adverb differently. To be memorable the phrase and the image that goes with it must be differentiated. The word form of the slogan enables memorability.

All ads direct towards some form of understanding and tangible action, mostly the purchasing of a product or service, or, in the area of public information, changing behaviour, changing a way of acting, or attempting to make people well-disposed to a cause or an idea. Do as I say In the early days of advertising, slogans tended to feature a call to action, taking the imperative tone, which was often emphasized by ungrammatical capitalization: ‘Go To Work On An Egg’ – Campaign by the Egg Marketing Board of the UK in the 1960s ‘Put a Tiger in Your Tank’ – Esso marketing campaign from the 1960s ‘Say it with Flowers’ – used by Interflora from the 1920s onwards ‘Don’t Leave Home Without it’ – used by American Express in the 1980s ‘Dig for Victory’ – the ubiquitous World War 2 public slogan which encouraged self-sufficiency in food production in the UK.

If the intention is to have people buy a product or service, it seems a given that slogans project an air of self-confidence and have a ring of absolute truth, unfettered by the need to be empirically true or beyond contestation: ‘Diamonds are Forever’ – used in the legendary DeBeers campaign, beginning in the 1940s ‘It’s Good To Talk’ – used in a British Telecom advert in the 1980s to encourage people to talk on the phone for longer ‘It’s the Real Thing’ – arguably Coca-Cola’s most enduring slogan of the many it has used ‘Guinness is Good For You’– interestingly, this 1930s phrase had to be retracted at a later date when the advertising agency said there was no medical evidence of Guinness being of any health benefit and it was therefore making a false claim. A call to arms Slogans can also be declarative , setting up a call to action: ‘I’d like to buy the world a Coke’ – another famous Coca Cola slogan, which was immortalized in song.

‘You press the button, we’ll do the rest’ – this was the earliest advertising slogan for Kodak cameras: instructive as well as declarative. ‘A Mars a Day helps you Work, Rest and Play’ – slogan used to advertise Mars Bars in the UK, from the 1970s onwards.

Everybody loves a pun Of course, as the world has become more sophisticated, and, by extension, more difficult to convince, slogans have had to rely more on capturing the attention with puns, alliteration, nouns, adjectives, and invented words, often foreign: ‘Be Cointreauversial’ – a campaign for the liqueur Cointreau ‘Don’t Just Book it, Thomas Cook it’ – used by Thomas Cook Travel Agency ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ – a slogan used to advertise Heinz Baked Beans ‘Don’t be Vague, Ask for Haig’ – from a Haig Whiskey advert from the 1930s onwards ‘Any time, any place, anywhere’ – this phrase, used in the Martini adverts of the 1970s onwards, conjured up a world of carefree glamour and became used in many different ways, often with bawdy connotations unrelated to the original message. You have to know the rules before you can break them Advertising slogans, in order to be memorable, occasionally misuse grammar as well as invent words.

‘Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.’ Although this is a grammatically incorrect statement, as ‘like’ is not a conjunction (it should be ‘as’), advertising copy writers would probably argue that it is more memorable. ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before’ has the distinction of being the world’s most famous split infinitive and has reached an audience of millions as the opening of the legendary TV series Star Trek. From Gutenberg to Google For a century the advertising slogan has become an alternative literary form. Some would argue that some advertising has become an art form for the masses. However, just as this level of esteem has been reached, the whole nature of advertising words has changed again. The future of slogans may be determined by how we phrase key words (now known appropriately as ‘ad words’) in the copy of online documents to maximize their ability to be searched. Now that Google is the world’s dominant advertising medium, traditional advertising will have to find a new lexicon. The opinions and other information contained in OxfordWords blog posts and comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Oxford University Press. Author Charles Doyle is Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Research at Jones Lang LaSalle in London.

Published Letters of Note: It's the real thing It's the real thing In March of 1970, having been shown an advertisement for the newly-published book in the New York Times, Coca-Cola brand manager Ira C. Herbert wrote to Grove Press and asked that they stop using the quote "it's the real thing"—a slogan associated with the soft-drink since the 1940s—when promoting Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher , Jim Haskins ' classic first-hand account of life as an African-American teacher in 1960s Harlem, New York. A few days later, Grove Press's Richard Seaver responded defiantly with a letter that was both hugely entertaining and instantly effective, as it resulted in silence from the beverage behemoth from that point on. The full exchange can be read below. (Letters very kindly submitted by Robert Wood, Sammamish High School; Image: Richard Seaver (left) at work at Grove Press, via Reality Studio .) March 25, 1970 New York, New York 10012 Dear Mr.

Seaver: Several people have called to our attention your advertisement for Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher by Jim Haskins, which appeared in the New York Times March 3, 1970. The theme of the ad is "This book is like a weapon...it's the real thing." Since our company has made use of "It's the Real Thing" to advertise Coca-Cola long prior to the publication of the book, we are writing to ask you to stop using this theme or slogan in connection with the book. We believe you will agree that it is undesirable for our companies to make simultaneous use of "the real thing" in connection with our respective products. There will always be likelihood of confusion as to the source or sponsorship of the goods, and the use by such prominent companies would dilute the distinctiveness of the trade slogan and diminish its effectiveness and value as an advertising and merchandising tool. "It's the Real Thing" was first used in advertising for Coca-Cola over twenty-seven years ago to refer to our product. We first used it in print advertising in 1942 and extended it to outdoor advertising, including painted walls—some of which are still displayed throughout the country.

The line has appeared in advertising for Coca-Cola during succeeding years. For example, in 1954 we used "There's this about Coke—You Can't Beat the Real Thing" in national advertising. We resumed national use of "It's the Real Thing" in the summer of 1969 and it is our main thrust for 1970. Please excuse my writing so fully, but I wanted to explain why we feel it necessary to ask you and your associates to use another line to advertise Mr. Haskins' book. We appreciate your cooperation and your assurance that you will discontinue the use of "It's the real thing." Sincerely, Atlanta, Georgia 30301 Dear Mr. Herbert: Thank you for your letter of March 25th, which has just reached me, doubtless because of the mail strike. We note with sympathy your feeling that you have a proprietary interest in the phrase "It's the real thing," and I can fully understand that the public might be confused by our use of the expression, and mistake a book by a Harlem schoolteacher for a six-pack of Coca-Cola.

Accordingly, we have instructed all our salesmen to notify bookstores that whenever a customer comes in and asks for a copy of Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher they should request the sales personnel to make sure that what the customer wants is the book, rather than a Coke. This, we think, should protect your interest and in no way harm ours. We would certainly not want to dilute the distinctiveness of your trade slogan nor diminish its effectiveness as an advertising and merchandising tool, but it did occur to us that since the slogan is so closely identified with your product, those who read our ad may well tend to go out and buy a Coke rather than our book. We have discussed this problem in an executive committee meeting, and by a vote of seven to six decided that, even if this were the case, we would be happy to give Coke the residual benefit of our advertising. Problems not unsimilar to the ones you raise in your letter have occurred to us in the past. You may recall that we published Games People Play which became one of the biggest nonfiction best-sellers of all time, and spawned conscious imitations (Games Children Play, Games Psychiatrists Play, Games Ministers Play, etc.).

I am sure you will agree that this posed a far more direct and deadly threat to both the author and ourselves than our use of "It's the real thing." Further, Games People Play has become part of our language, and one sees it constantly in advertising, as a newspaper headline, etc. The same is true of another book which we published six or seven years ago, One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. Given our strong sentiments concerning the First Amendment, we will defend to the death your right to use "It's the real thing" in any advertising you care to. We would hope you would do the same for us, especially when no one here or in our advertising agency, I am sorry to say, realized that you owned the phrase. We were merely quoting in our ads Peter S.

Prescott's review of Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher in Look which begins "Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher is the real thing, a short, spare, honest book which will, I suspect, be read a generation hence as a classic..." With all best wishes, 100 Most Influential Slogans 100 Most Influential Slogans Dodd · Friday, July 18, 2008 · 15 Comments The 100 Most Influential Taglines Since 1948 . There’s always room to quibble with this selection or that, but on the whole it’s a pretty solid list. I probably wouldn’t put “Got milk?” Number 1, for instance, but it obviously belongs in the Top 10. Speaking of which, here they are: Slogans: 1. Got milk? (1993) California Milk Processor Board 2. Don’t leave home without it. (1975) American Express 3. Just do it. (1988) Nike 4. Where’s the beef? (1984) Wendy’s 5. You’re in good hands with Allstate.

(1956) Allstate Insurance 6. Think different. (1998) Apple Computer 7. We try harder. (1962) Avis 8. Tastes great, less filling. (1974) Miller Lite 9. Melts in your mouth, not in your hands. (1954) M&M Candies 10. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. (1956) Timex Jingles: 1. My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R. (1960s) Oscar Mayer 2. Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is. (1970s) Alka-Seltzer 3. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. (1971) State Farm Insurance 4. Double your pleasure, double your fun. (1959) Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum 5. Be all that you can be. (1981) U.S. Army 6. For all you do, this Bud’s for you. (1970s) Budweiser 7.

A little dab’ll do ya. (1950s) Brylcreem 8. It’s the real thing. (1970) Coca-Cola 9. Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man. (1970s) Ace Hardware 10. You deserve a break today. (1971) McDonald’s There are a couple down the list from my lifetime I can’t recall ever hearing. I’d replace at least one with a real no-brainer: Are you ready for some football? Other alternatives – such as “I’ve got a headache THIS big – and it’s got Excedrin written all over it.” – also present themselves. Any others come to mind? Via *** Dave , who thinks the lists would make good sources for blog post titles. Advertising slogans - Wikiquote Advertising slogans Jump to: navigation , search Advertising slogans are short, often memorable phrases used in advertising campaigns. They are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. 1948 N.W. Ayer & Son Steve Cone, Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History‎ (2008), p. 129.

A little dab'll do ya! Susan Wilson, One Good Dog (2010), p. 296. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. George R. Bonner Jr., "Public-service advertising nears No. 1 ad pace in US", Christian Science Monitor (April 26, 1983), Business, p. 10. Always Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola 1993 Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It (2000), p. 398. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. , p. 22, cf. pp. 9 & 50. An idea can change your life. Idea Cellular K. Rama Moahana Rao, Services Marketing (2011), p. 341 Aren't You Hungry for Burger King now? Burger King 1982 Steven C. Hayes, Kirk D. Strosahl, Kelly G. Wilson, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Second Edition: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2011), p.

54 At the A&P, we watch our P's and Q's. Crain Books, Advertising Age Yearbook (1981), p. 175 Be all that you can be. Craig C. Pinder, Work Motivation: Theory, Issues, and Applications (1984), p. 50. Be more. Susan Tyler Eastman, ‎Douglas A. Ferguson, ‎Robert A. Klein, Media Promotion and Marketing for Broadcasting, Cable, and the Internet (2006), p. 256. Be There! NBC 1983 Channel 62 in the "Weird Al" Yankovic movie UHF uses "Be there!" in a commercial. The audio commentary specifically states that NBC had that for their catchphrase. Beanz Meanz Heinz. Adrian Mackay, The Fundamentals of Advertising (1999), p. 194. Better sound through research. Carolyn Handa, The Multimediated Rhetoric of the Internet: Digital Fusion (2013), p. 97. Between love and madness lies Obsession. Calvin Klein 's Obsession 1985 Robert Jackall and Janice M.

Hirota, Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy (2003), p. 212. Breakfast of Champions 1935 Blackett-Sample-Gummert Later "The Breakfast of Champions" into the 1990s; cited by Kurt Vonnegut eponymously in Breakfast of Champions (1973), preface: "The use of the identical expression as the title for this book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it intended to disparage their fine product." Buy Opera today! And make this banner go away! Gary P. Schneider, ‎Jessica Evans, New Perspectives on the Internet, Introductory (2006), p. 90. Cabinets fit for royalty, but affordable for all! Kitchen Cabinet Kings 2011 Anthony Saladino James R. Gregory, The Best of Advertising Slogans: Best Practices in Corporate Building (2011), p. 23. Cable. It's not just more choice, it's your choice.

Council for Cable Information National Federation of Local Cable Programmers, Community Television Review - Volume 9 (1986), p. 35. Coca-Cola. Enjoy! The Richards Group, Atlanta PRNewswire‎ (1995). Empowering Financial Institutions Globally. Dan Ramsey, ‎Stephen Windhaus, The Everything Business Plan Book with CD: All You Need to Succeed in a New Or Growing Business (2009), p. 40. Every bubble's passed its fizzical. Ron Norman, ‎Anne Watkiss, A2 English Language for AQA B (2001), p. 70. Every kiss begins with Kay Tom Altstiel, Jean Grow, Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics from the Outside/In (2006), p. 167. Food, folks and fun. McDonald's 1990 Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Cavas Gobhai, Greg Welch, Good for Business: The Rise of the Conscious Corporation (2009), p. 74. First in Home Improvement!

The Home Depot 1999 Honey Parker, ‎Blaine Parker, Billion-Dollar Branding: Brand Your Small Business Like a Big Business and Great Things Happen (2012), p. 32. Gather 'round the good stuff. John Doyle, Unbidden Persuaders (2005), p. 57. Get the door, it's Domino's! Ford Saeks, Marketing Magic (2005), p. 16. Gets you back where you belong. Laura E. Whiteley, International Directory of Company Histories - Volume 25 (1999), p. 154. Give me a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar Heye & Partner, an affiliate of DDB Worldwide Tom Altstiel, Jean Grow, Advertising Strategy: Creative Tactics from the Outside/In‎ (2006), p. 293. I'm thinking Arby's. Jim Osterman, Excellence in Brand Advertising (2007), p. 128. If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face.

James Alburger, The Art of Voice Acting: The Craft and Business of Performing for Voiceover (2010), p. 126. If PBS doesn't do it, who will? Susan Tyler Eastman, ‎Douglas A. Ferguson, ‎Robert A. Klein, Media Promotion and Marketing for Broadcasting, Cable, and the Internet (2006), p. 253. Imagination at Work. Mike Symes, Light Your Firebrand (2011), p. 122. Improving home improvement. Jesko Perrey, ‎Dennis Spillecke, Retail Marketing and Branding: A Definitive Guide to Maximizing ROI (2011), p. 45. Is it live, or is it Memorex? Memorex video cassettes 1970s Richard D. Leppert, Susan McClary, Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception (2001), p. 174. It's a good time for the great taste of McDonald's.

McDonald's 1984 Martin Lindstrom, Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy (2011), p. 138. It's in there! Robert McMath, What Were They Thinking?: Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Products That Flopped (2011) It's just made for you. Tina Grant, International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 74 (2006), p. 332. It's my way. Dorothy L. Sayers for S.H. Benson's Mitzi Brunsdale, Dorothy L. Sayers (1990), p. 94. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Timex Corporation 1956 William Harley Davidson, José R. De la Torre, Managing the Global Corporation: Case Studies in Strategy and Management (1989), p. 21. It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. 1972 Scali, McCabe & Sloves Robert F. Hartley, Marketing Successes, Historical to Present Day: What We Can Learn (1985), p. 171.

It wouldn't be home without Hellmann's. Janice Jorgensen, Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands: Consumable Products (1994), p. 253. It's the Internet that logs onto you. Jonathan Gabay, Gabay's Copywriters' Compendium - Revised & Updated Edition (2006), p. 598. It's finger lickin' good. Jacky Tai, Get a Name!: 10 Rules to Create A Great Brand Name (2010), p. 281. It's Your ABC. Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Nike Culture: the Sign of the Swoosh‎ (1998), p. 19; authorship attributed to Wieden & Kennedy in Communication Arts (1988), p. 151. Let's build something together. Rob Eagar, Sell Your Book Like Wildfire: The Writer's Guide to Marketing and Publicity (2012), p. 41. Life is short. Stay awake for it! Caribou Coffee Brook Noel, Good Morning: 365 Positive Ways to Start Your Day (2008), p. 42. Life tastes good.

Coca-Cola 2001 Shel Holtz, Public Relations on the Net: Winning Strategies to Inform and Influence the Media, the Investment Community, the Government, the Public, and More! (2002). p. 174. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2013), p. 50. Never stop improving. Louis Boone, ‎David Kurtz, Contemporary Marketing (2015), p. 183. Nick Jr. is Just for Me! David Buckingham, Small Screens: Television for Children (2002), p. 22. Nobody can do it like McDonald's can. McDonald's 1979 Richard Lederer, Richard Dowis, The Write Way: The Spell Guide to Good Grammar and Usage (1995), p. 202. Nobody does chicken like KFC. Frédéric Beigbeder, Was £9.99 Now £6.99: A Novel (2003), p. 257. Nothing outlasts the Energizer. It keeps going and going and going.

Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising‎ (1996), p. 45. Obey your thirst. Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising (1996), p. 263. Oh, what a feeling! Toyota 1979 Donna Jean Umiker-Sebeok, Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the Study of Signs For Sale (1987), p. 524. Once you go Mac, you'll never go back. David A. LaBonte, Shiny Objects Marketing: Using Simple Human Instincts to Make Your Brand Irresistable (2009), p. 120. Open Happiness. Coca-Cola 2009 Joeri Van Den Bergh, Mattias Behrer, How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation Y (2013), p. 226. Pizza! Pizza! Little Caesars 1979 Arthur Agatston, The South Beach Diet Dining Guide: Your Reference Guide to Restaurants Across America (2005), p. 82. Playing what we want.

Lonnie Bell, The Story of Coca-Cola (2003), p. 6. Sharp Minds, Sharp Products. Philip Theibert, The Most Creative, Escape the Ordinary, Excel at Public Speaking Book Ever: All The Help You Will Ever Need In Giving A Speech (2013), p. 6. Simplicity at work, Better by Adobe. Adweek, L.P., Brandweek - Volume 45 (2004), p. 201. So easy a caveman can do it. Laura Lowell, 42 Rules of Marketing (2007), p. 21. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. 1953 Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample Linda K. Fuller, Frank Hoffmann, Beulah B Ramirez, Chocolate Fads, Folklore & Fantasies: 1,000+ Chunks of Chocolate Information (1994), p. 60. Taking Care of Business. Arthur A. Winters, Peggy Fincher Winters, Carole Paul, Brandstand: Strategies for Retail Brand Building (2003), p. 148. Taste the Rainbow.

Shannon McCabe, Aesthetic Alternative: Hip Hop as Living Art (2011), p. 85. There's always room for Jell-O. Frances Lareau, My Polish-American Mother (2011), p. 185. The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup! Davis Dyer, ‎Frederick Dalzell, ‎Rowena Olegario, Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble (2004), p. 98. The Best Place for Cartoons. Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, Cable Network Profiles: A Comprehensive Sales Guide to Basic Cable Networks (2001), p. 42. The Coke Side of Life. 2006 Jeffrey K. Johnson, American Advertising in Poland: A Study of Cultural Interactions Since 1990 (2008), p. 169. The First Kids' Network. Nickelodeon 1985 Gordon L. Berry, Joy Keiko Asamen, Children and Television: Images in a Changing Socio-Cultural World (1993), p. 304. The Indian Multinational.

Poonia, ‎Virender S, Advertising Management (2010), p. 70. The lion leaps from strength to strength. Edward Collins Bursk, The world of business‎ (1962), p. 335. The place for TV hits. Tammy Karten, Marketer's Guide to Media (2001), p. 64. The snack that smiles back. Michael R. Solomon , Greg W. Marshall , Elnora W. Stuart, Marketing: Real People, Real Choices (7th Edition) (2010), p. 248. The way a sandwich should be. Thomas Riggs, Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns: Volume 2 (2006), p. 456. The world's local bank. Philip Kotler , Waldemar Pfoertsch, Ines Michi, B2B Brand Management (2006), p. 102. There is no spit in Cremo!

Cremo cigars by American Tobacco 1929 Radio campaign on the new Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS); cited in Erik Barnouw , The Sponsor: Notes On a Modern Potentate, Oxford University Press, 1978, page 25, ISBN 0-19-502614-4 . Think outside the bun. Taco Bell 2001 Mark Burtman, Be the Least You Can Be: Getting the Most Out of Your Phentermine Based Weight Loss Program (2008), p. 22 Thousands of possibilities. Get yours. Linda G. Tucker, Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture (2007), p. 77 Very funny. Dwain Neilson Esmond, Can You Hear Me Now?: Young Adult Devotional (2004), p. 140. When it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight. 1982 Ally & Gargano Steve Cone, Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History‎ (2008), p. 136. When you're at The Home Depot, you feel right at home.

Honey Parker, ‎Blaine Parker, Billion-Dollar Branding: Brand Your Small Business Like a Big Business and Great Things Happen (2012), p. 32. Where a kid can be a kid. Lawrence V. Bolar, Eradicating the Saggy Pants Syndrome in America (2013), p. 11. Where the pets go. Margo Berman, ‎Robyn Blakeman, The Brains Behind Great Ad Campaigns: Creative Collaboration Between Copywriters and Art Directors (2009), p. 108. Who could ask for anything more? Ronald Lampman Watts, Canada: The State of the Federation, 1989 (1989), p. 195. With a name like Smuckers... it has to be good. Cynthia S. Smith, Step-by-step Advertising (1984), p. 74. You can do it. We can help. The Home Depot 2003 Larry D. Kelley, Donald W. Jugenheimer, Advertising Account Planning: Planning and Managing an IMC Campaign (2010), p. 126. You can't top the copper top.

Marcel Danesi, Why it Sells: Decoding the Meanings of Brand Names, Logos, Ads, and Other Marketing and Advertising Ploys (2008), p. 104. You deserve a break today. 1971 Needham, Harper & Steers Steve Cone, Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History‎ (2008), p. 136. You got 30 minutes. Alok Kumar Rai, Customer Relationship Management: Concepts and Cases (2012), p. 229. You're in good hands with Allstate. Sidney J. Levy, Dennis W. Rook, Brands, Consumers, Symbols, & Research: Sidney J. Levy on Marketing (1999), p. 15. You've got a lot to live, and Pepsi's got a lot to give. 1969 BBDO Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (1998), p. 179. You got peanut butter in my chocolate! You got chocolate in my peanut butter!

(Voiceover) Two great tastes that taste great together. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups 1970 Andrew Hargadon, How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth about how Companies Innovate‎ (2003), p. 56; reported in part in Andrew F. Smith, Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food‎ (2006), p. 228 (specifying date and attributing authorship to Ogilvy & Mather ). You never get a second chance to make a first impression. 1980s Adapted from Harry Simmons, Successful Sales Management (1952), p. 127. sequences associated with the condition that the product claims to address.<ref>Thomas O'Guinn, ‎Chris Allen, ‎Richard J. Semenik, Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion (2014), p. 210. Coca Cola "It's the Real Thing" (1970) skip to main | skip to sidebar Coca Cola "It's the Real Thing" (1970) The Coca-Cola Company was first established in 1886 by Dr John Styth Pemberton.

Today, the company is the world's leading manufacturer in the beverage industry, operating globally in more than 200 countries . Thursday, June 3, 2010 11:52 AM No comments: Wednesday, June 2, 2010 The likely objective of the campaign was to bring in something new for the fast changing generation. The late 60's brought plenty of changes not only in everyday social life, but in its political aspects as well. Richard Nixon won the presidency againsts Hubert Humphrey and became the voice of the nation. He promised to restore law and order and became the real thing to the people of the U.S. similar to how Barack Obama has now. Coca-Cola knew the American people were becoming wiser in what goods they wanted to buy and things they would support, so they chose the phrase "It's The Real Thing." Posted by BRAND POSITIONING The brand positioning for Coke was being the leader in refreshments. They wanted to stand out from the crowd and so the slogan read “It’s the real thing”. Coke is suggesting that all other competitors are not the real thing, meaning not true in taste.

It’s trying emit an image that it’s true and pure in taste. When consumers think of Coke, it should be about the flavor and taste of the beverage. According to the VALs surreys, innovators would respond to this type of brand positioning because Coke is the real taste of cola. Believers would also be a good candidate since they favor U.S. products and they are loyal to their brands. Achievers would also react to this kind of brand positioning because they favor more established products. Experiencers would feel for this too because they want the “in” thing and at that time Coke was the “in” thing. Posted by The Message The message was clear in the ad for Coca Cola’s “It’s the real thing”. Coca Cola wanted to show unity among people but not just in the United States, but all over the world. The commercial starts out with a single person singing and then she is joined by others. These other people are dressed in traditional attire and they are all different nationalities. The company wanted to show unity and harmony with everyone. It also made Americans look compassionate about the rest of the world.

Coca Cola’s approach was that they wanted to be different then their competitors and they did just that by involving the world. The message was heard by all, this became one of the most memorable Coca Cola commercials ever. Posted by What was the unique about the campaign? The television ad "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" was released first in Europe, where it garnered only a tepid response. It was then released in the U.S. in July, 1971, and the response was immediate and dramatic. By November of that year, Coca-Cola and its bottlers had received more than a hundred thousand letters about the ad. At that time the demand for the song was so great that many people were calling radio stations and asking them to play the commercial. Clearly, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" had struck a chord deeper than the normal response to the advertisement of a commercial product, and Billy Davis asked Bill Backer to rewrite the lyrics without the references to Coke. Because the New Seekers were initially unavailable to record the new version, a group calling itself the Hillside Singers recorded it with a country-and-western flavor and released it as a single.

When the New Seekers began an American tour several weeks latter, they re-recorded the new lyrics and released a second single. Both version sold well in fact, at one point, the New Seekers version was listed among the top ten songs on the American pop music charts while the Hillside Singers version was number thirteen. Such successes were repeated around the world as the ad's popularity expanded. Recordings of the song and versions of the sheet music appeared in a variety of languages to fill an ever-increasing demand. "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" has had a lasting connection with the viewing public. Advertising surveys consistently identify it as one of the best commercials of all time, and the sheet music continues to sell more than thirty years after the song was written. Such is the power of television advertising that through the enduring popularity of this ad, at least, Coke has borne out something of Backer's ambitious claims for it, becoming a common connection among people. Posted by The Industry Situation of the 70's During the late 1960's, soft drinks were well on their way to becoming America's #1 beverage choice.

Carbonated drinks had been trailing at #2 since 1967 behind coffee, but were quickly growing as a favorable beverage choice. Milk was the #3 drink of choice while beer, tea, juices, and distilled spirits followed. There was a dip in soft drink sales for a few years after the ban of cyclamate in 1969. Cyclamate was the common sweetening agent used in soft drinks. Because of the ban on cyclamate, Pepsi-Cola launched Pepsi-Light using saccharin as their sweetener but quickly fizzled out as high fructose corn syrup was introduced in 1974. The introduction of high fructose corn syrup came at a time when sugar prices were incredibly high, making HFCS the best alternative as a sweetener. Like many industries during the 1970's, the soft drink industry was also hurt by the economic depression. Private label soft drinks made a small peak of sales in 1972 but slowly drifted downward after that. Larger national brands used value-packaging in returnable containers as well as other packaging innovations to help boost sales.

Posted by A History of Coca-Cola Advertising Slogans: The Coca-Cola Company Throughout the years, the slogans used in advertising for Coca-Cola have reflected not only the brand, but the times. Slogans provide a simple, direct way to communicate about Coca-Cola . The 1906 slogan, "The Great National Temperance Beverage," reflects a time when the society in the United States was veering away from alcoholic beverages, and Coca-Cola provided a nice alternative. Other slogans have concerned our sales figures, such as "Three Million a Day" from 1917 or "Six Million a Day" from 1925. In terms of drinks a day, that's a vast difference from the one billion a day mark The Coca-Cola Some slogans for Coca-Cola have concentrated on the quality of the product, its refreshing taste, or even its role in entertaining, as in 1948's "Where There's Coke There's Hospitality." In 1985, the introduction of a new taste of Coca-Cola (commonly called new Coke® ) and the reintroduction of Coca-Cola classic and the original formula led to multiple slogans.

1985 featured "America's Real Choice," while by 1986, two slogans were used to differentiate the brands, with "Red, White & You" for Coca-Cola classic and "Catch the Wave" for Coca-Cola . Some advertisements themselves rise to the level of memorable slogans. The 1971 "Hilltop" ad featured a song with the words "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke." Although that wasn't an actual slogan (the ad in fact was part of the "It's the Real Thing" campaign), the ad and song lyrics are still so well known today that the lyrics are considered a slogan to many. In January 2003, latest slogan for Coca-Cola was introduced -- "Coca-Cola...

Real." The campaign (and slogan in turn) reflects genuine, authentic moments in life and the natural role Coca-Cola The Great National Temperance Beverage (1906) (Photo Credit: ) Thirst Knows No Season (1922) (Photo Credit: ) Thirst Asks Nothing More (1939) (Photo Credit: ) Along the Highway to Anywhere (1949) (Photo Credit: ) Sign of Good Taste (1957) (Photo Credit: ) It's the Real Thing (1969) (Photo Credit: ) Have a Coke and a Smile (1979) (Photo Credit: ) You Can't Beat the Feeling (1988) (Photo Credit: ) The following is an excerpt from Jeff Chang’s Who We Be: The Colorization of America .

From the turgid summer of 1971 through the terrible autumn of 1972, TV newscasts must have seemed unrelenting: millions marching to stop the war, prisoners attacked at Attica, the Watergate scandal and the Pentagon Papers, the Manson and Serpico and My Lai trials, guns in Munich, bombs in D.C., and troops in Derry. Pain and hatred and misery. Where was the harmony, sweet harmony? It was in the ad-break, in a commercial for Coca-Cola. The spot begins with a blonde woman, eyes clear blue, lip-syncing a strange lyric, “I’d like to buy the world a home, and furnish it with love.” There is an even weirder second line, about growing apple trees and honeybees and snow-white turtledoves. Advertisement The camera pans across rows of young singers smiling with the rising sun—Spanish, Swedish, Nigerian, Nepalese, dressed in a dashiki, a kimono, a dirndl, a Nehru, a turtleneck.

Together they lip-sync, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” Each holds a green glass hobble skirt bottle in their right hand, one branded in English script, the next in Arabic, another in Thai. “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” they sing, “and keep it company.” The camera pulls up to an aerial view, revealing 200 singers aligned on a green hillside like an open fan, a youth chorus of the world. Get Slate in your inbox. Imagine, in a season of racial division, imperialist deception, and capitalist malaise, the whole world gathered upon a hill sharing a fizzy brown drink. “It’s the real thing—Coke is,” they sing in unison, “what the world wants today.” The commercial, first aired on July 8, 1971, had been conceptualized and co-written by Bill Backer, a McCann-Erickson executive who had been searching for a way to rebrand Coke. Backer wanted “a big basic idea—one that would involve the entire United States market for Coca-Cola,” everyone regardless of race, color, class, or creed.

The jingle he and his team wrote would come to be known as “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” The campaign’s code name was “Buy the World,” the budget for this commercial alone was nearly $1.3 million in 2013 dollars, and through it Coke might have a shot at more than just glass-bottle redemption. Imagine, in a season of racial division, imperialist deception, capitalist malaise, and national despair the whole world gathered upon a hill sharing a fizzy brown drink. It might look like a picture of renewed American faith. Buying a Coke was like buying the world shelter and peace. Advertisement The hilltop commercial was among the first that Coca-Cola shot in full color. More important, it was perhaps the nation’s first colorized one—an unusual advertisement that admitted a possible multicultural future beyond whiteness. Conceived during the fall of 1968, the Real Thing commercials would incept the drink into a new dream of America, in which divisions between young and old, counterculture and mainstream, Black and white, poor and rich, liberal and conservative had been resolved. In this era of fragmentation and unrest, it was time for the universal drink, like Brand U.S.

itself, to reassert some alpha swag. McCann-Erickson went to an earlier grand dream of one America, the social realist vision of the cultural front, which had found expression through Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Depression-era jobs programs for artists. From Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother to Zora Neale Hurston’s collections of Black folklore, Social Realism advanced the themes of inclusion, struggle, and triumph that would come to be associated with the “American Century.” Now at the start of the 1970s, McCann-Erickson was sending teams of photographers and art directors again into the great land. Their mission was to capture—or to stage—slices of American life far from the cultural battlefronts. The earliest Real Thing spots, which began airing in 1969, were montages of these images. Advertisement One Real Thing spot was called “Friendly Feelings,” a subtle turnabout of that fog-of-war phrase “friendly fire.” The images included teenagers taking a break from fixing a roof, a boy and a girl dancing in a wheat field, a young woman cutting her husband’s long hippie hair.

It included two close-ups of a black family, a mother and daughter and a father and son, both parents enjoying a bottle of the brown sugary stuff. The jingle concluded, “Coca-Cola, it’s the real thing, like friendly feelings.” In the closing voice-over of “Friendly Feelings,” a narrator declared, “A bottle of Coke has brought more people together than any other soft drink in the world.” Bill Backer and the young staff at McCann-Erickson finally were ready to meet BBDO’s challenge. But they also seemed to want to address something deeper: what it meant to be an innocent American bumbling through a suddenly very big and dangerous world. It was Backer who first saw the outlines of racial harmony and world peace in a green bottle of brown bubbly sugar water. His epiphany came out of a disrupted airline flight. Two weeks before the debut of “Friendly Feelings,” Backer was on his way to meet his songwriting collaborators in London. But he found himself grounded by Heathrow fog at the tiny Shannon Airport outside Limerick, Ireland.

Passengers, mostly high-maintenance business travelers, were forced to double up overnight at an overcrowded motel, a situation accepted mostly with reluctance and not a little petulant acting out. Advertisement The next morning Backer took a seat in the airport restaurant and looked at the crowd. The night before they had been at each other’s throats. Now they were all conversing in English, laughing together. And they seemed to be drinking bottles of Coke. Backer was struck by the notion that Coke was “a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes.” He started scribbling ideas on a napkin. When Backer finally met with his colleague Billy Davis—a songwriter from Motown who had been in the Four Tops—and the rest of his team, he said he wanted “a song that treated the whole world as if it were a person—a person the singer would like to help and get to know.” He read to them what he had written on the napkin: “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.” Working quickly, they got British folksingers the New Seekers to record the song and brought it to radio.

Coca-Cola’s bottlers hated it, company president Paul Austin thought it was too sentimental, and listeners were unmoved. But somehow the agency prevailed in getting more money to turn the jingle into a television commercial. A young McCann-Erickson employee named Harvey Gabor suggested an idea for the “First United World Chorus” singing the song. Medium Cool director Haskell Wexler signed on to direct. They returned to England to shoot, a globalized production assembling the diversity of the Old World to comfort the anxious masses of the New. London brought bad weather so they moved to Rome. This first shoot was a disaster, a telling one. Advertisement An Italian production company brought in 1,200 young extras from local orphanages. As the sun grew hotter, the orphans were kept locked in steaming buses. By noon the bored, parched teens were rocking the buses off their axles and wolfishly eyeing the big truck full of Cokes parked at the bottom of the hill. At the top, Davis stood on a conductor’s ladder, struggling to teach the united world chorus how to mouth lyrics in a language many did not speak.

For the final scene—an aerial shot of the orphans cheering alongside the united world chorus—the teens were released from their buses. They raged loud and broad across the field. A beleaguered team of marshals finally corralled and herded them into place near the chorus. There the orphans took the glass bottles they had been handed and with an angry roar began flinging them at the director’s helicopter overhead. Then they stormed down the hill toward the Coke truck and tried to overturn it. Where was the harmony? It had been interrupted by a teenage riot worthy of Black Friday. Perhaps this, too, was what American exceptionalism looked like. The next day Wexler, still angry he had nearly been toppled from the sky to certain death over a stupid Coke commercial, fled the set, never to return. With a different crew and production company, a much smaller cast, and a different Italian location, the spot was finally completed. The “Buy the World” commercial was released in Europe, mostly to indifference. Advertisement But in the United States the TV spot found huge success. Coca-Cola was suddenly flooded with letters of gratitude and requests for lyrics and sheet music.

As Tom Clay’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love” fell off the Billboard charts, two different versions of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” took its place. In the end both topped the charts not just in the United States, but around the world, including Europe. America was still losing the war in Southeast Asia, but it was back to winning hearts and minds at home and abroad. In 1939, near the end of the Great Depression, Coke had run print ads titled “The drink everybody knows ...” that collected illustrations of Americans at work and at play. There were airline pilots and stewardesses, young female shoppers, baseball-playing kids, courting teens, a homemaker, a snow-shoveler. Except for a smiling Pochontas-type Indian sharing a drink with a young little rosy-cheeked cowboy, all of the subjects were white. Each illustration represented a frontier closed and a market opened. Together they pointed forward toward the affluent society and Kennedy’s suburban New Frontier. At the start of the 1970s, at the end of the long postwar economic boom, Buy the World pictured the last frontier.

Each smiling young person on the Italian hill—marked by their race, nation, and culture—held a market in their hand. It was a primitive picture, to be sure, a couple hundred smiling stereotypes, a stock sheet of misrepresentations. But it was not dishonest. In the eyes of capital, nonwhites and non-Americans represented the last to be brought inside, organized, harmonized. As the American Century roared to a close, capitalism’s destiny would belong to identity. Buy the World had stumbled upon a key to unlocking not just for Coca-Cola, but all of American business, the young world of the coming Global Century. From capital’s dream of one America, a New World Order might be born. But it would be decades before many realized that such a world was even possible.

Question: ‘It’s the real thing’ was a 1970’s advertising slogan for which product?
Answer: Coca Cola