…and quite frankly, you shouldn’t have to.
In fact, how about if I told you…it was free?
*Gasp*
The most effective advertising is the kind that lures you in through visuals, sound level, or a memorable slogan. Sometimes, “effective” means “annoying,” but usually has a more positive connotation in line with memorable.
Case in point: the effectiveness of advertising when it relies on the slogan. As a kid, I absorbed advertising like a sponge. There is a reason that, at 36, I still love advertising as a medium: it conveys ideas, suggestions, and persuades in the shortest and (sometimes) most minimal way possible.
Take, for instance, today’s two-part harmony of commercials. I always saw these on WPIX, whether it was during Yankees games, the weekend afternoon movie, or any other time I just happened to have the channel on. The slogan itself is memorable, if the commercials always weren’t. But because I knew the slogan, I watched the commercial.
I actually remember some kids in my reading class (I think in fifth grade) saying this, more than a few years after today’s commercials aired. I think it was because, by then, the company had a spokesperson in place, but the slogan was still being said.
So let’s travel back to the magical year of 1988, the company is Meineke, and the declaration by put-upon individuals that they’re not going to pay alot for this product!
We have our friendly Meineke mechanic…
And his customers, who remind us of what they won’t pay alot for…
An Inspector Clouseau-type, a fortune teller, and the Secret Service all go into a Meineke…
What is this bone of contention they have with cost? Click play and find out!
Yeah, you really won’t pay alot!
Meineke Discount Mufflers (now Meineke Car Care Centers) boasted the value of their mufflers in their commercials, while put-upon consumers would inform the mechanic that they “Would not pay alot for this muffler!”
These ads ran through the mid-1980s and well into the 1990s, even once George Foreman became their spokesperson (he held the job from 1993 until 2010).
In 2003, Meineke Discount Mufflers became Meineke Car Care Centers, an expansion upon their limited service into becoming a full service company. They’ve been in business since 1972, and operate over 900 franchise-based locations around the world.
Hopefully, people still aren’t paying alot for their mufflers…or any other services.
So, as their current slogan says, on with life! And that’s what we’ll do, move forward to tomorrow, with another car care center peddling its wares and promises.
Until then, have a great Throwback Thursday!
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