I’m beginning to think marketing people know me personally.
Not know me know me. They’re not sitting around a conference table saying, “Okay, what can we do to Kiki today?”
But they know my type.
Somewhere along the way, someone figured out that if you put a catchy little jingle into a commercial and play it enough times, I will not only remember it—I will eventually perform it.
Case in point: ZipRecruiter.
“Build your team, build it sooner…”
I don’t just hum this little ditty.
Oh no.
I sing it like I’m performing LIVE at Met Stadium.
There are imaginary backup singers. Possibly a wind machine. If I’m alone in the Jeep, there may even be choreography.
These people have gotten inside my head.
Marketing experts have known about people like me forever. Plant one tiny microscopic earworm in Kiki’s brain, water it with repeated commercial breaks, and before you know it, I’m giving a sold-out performance at a red light.
And this is nothing new.
Think about how many advertising campaigns have taken up permanent residence in our brains over the years.
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.”
“Time to make the donuts.”
“Can you hear me now?”
“Where’s the beef?”
I’m willing to bet you just heard every single one of those in the exact voice in which they were originally delivered.
That, my friends, is marketing genius.
Some of these jingles and catchphrases became so ingrained in our lives that they actually worked their way into our everyday vocabulary. They stopped being commercials and became little pieces of family history.
Such was the case at Chez Eastwood.
In 1985, Wendy’s aired a commercial featuring a Soviet fashion show. The premise was hysterical. Every “outfit” coming down the runway was essentially the same drab garment, while a stern announcer introduced each fabulous new look.
“Dayvear.”
“Eveninkvear.”
“Svimvear.”
Same outfit.
Different occasion.
Teenage Kiki HOWLED.
But the pièce de résistance was the approving declaration:
“Very nice.”
My father loved it as much as I did.
And just like that, Wendy’s entered the Eastwood family vocabulary.
If Dad approved of something?
“Very nice.”
Except it was never simply very nice. It had to be delivered in the Soviet accent.
New outfit from the mall?
“Dayvear.”
Going out that night?
“Eveninkvear.”
Bathing suit?
You already know.
“Svimvear.”
We would fall apart laughing.
Decades passed. The commercial disappeared. Wendy’s moved on to other campaigns. We all got older.
But those words stayed.
Toward the end of my dad’s life, when so many memories had begun slipping away from him, I would occasionally reach into our old family bag of tricks.
“Dayvear.”
Or I’d give him a perfectly timed—
“Very nice.”
And every once in a while, something almost miraculous would happen.
Dad would look straight into my eyes.
And laugh.
He didn’t always remember me.
But somewhere deep inside his mind, tucked between a lifetime of memories that were becoming harder and harder for him to reach, there was still a ridiculous Wendy’s commercial from 1985.
And there we were again.
Back at 36 Grant Avenue.
Dad and me. Belly laughing.
That is the real genius of a great commercial. The marketing people think they’re selling us hamburgers, antacids, phone service and jobs.
But sometimes, without anyone realizing it, they’re also giving us little pieces of language that attach themselves to moments, people and places we love.
Forty years later, I couldn’t tell you what I ordered at Wendy’s in 1985.
But I can still hear my dad.
“Very nice.”
And you know what?
Very nice, indeed.
