Very Nice.

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.

Unknown's avatar

Author: KikiFikar

Kiki Fikar is a native New Yorker who is passionate about taking the day to day life we all experience and sharing it in her tales from Suburbia. She will often be found at the gym, writing snippets each day for future story lines, listening to her two children create their lives, and building the perfect beachfront home and writing retreat in her mind.

54 thoughts on “Very Nice.”

  1. That’s beautiful! I’ve read stories of people working with dementia patients or people in memory-care who play certain sounds and the people react as if they remember. Sounds are powerful like that! It always amazes me how certain songs can make me feel certain memories from the past. Those marketing people are geniuses for being able to weave it all together like they do.

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    1. It’s incredible! I took a few marketing classes in college, and I can remember hearing about how subliminal messages were piped into the sound system with songs at the supermarket. That always fascinated me! Whatever it is, it clearly works!

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  2. This was such a beautiful story KiKi. How something as simple as a silly commercial became a precious memory between you and your Dad … Those little moments really can become priceless treasures.

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  3. 🙂 i know your Dad is smiling and saying “very nice” at this dedication.

    time really just goes the way we most expect it and in the way we least perceive it ❤ Mike

    p.s. i'm going to use the Svimvear, Dayvear, Eveninvear moving forward ;D

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  5. The marketers who really think about what they’re writing know the effect goes far deeper than a sale. The companies that hire them are literally banking on it.

    I think it’s wonderful when it has an unexpected moment of grace, like this. Thank you for sharing.

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  7. that’s funny, I’m the opposite, I tune out of commercials. I could not remember anything from them or have them stick in my head. Cool picture of Lenin the lady needs some color.

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  8. Love it! I remember when Barry Manilow did a medley of commercial jingles. He can’t recall what all of them were, but I know one was “like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

    I think every family has (or should have) its catchphrase. In our family, we picked up my grandmother’s “not TOO bad,” which was high praise indeed. Even our grandson says it now. Thanks for another wonderful post.

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    1. Thank you Lynn! I love the memories.

      I’m a HUGE Barry fan (future blogs). He used to have that whole jingle piece in his sets. He was the lyricist behind State Farm for years before “Jake from State Farm” became a thing!

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  10. I’m chuckling thinking about you and your wind machine. A good commercial cements itself in our memories – long after the campaign had passed. Whether it’s a catchy jingle, slogan or video. It’s also nice when it triggers a shared memory with loved ones.

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  11. Kiki, I’ve lived a thousand lives in my 63 years, and lately I seem to be paying dearly for a few of them! Since you’ve shared a little of yours, I’ll share one of mine.

    In one of those lives, I was a radio station sales manager. They handed me that job after I’d already served as news director, operations director, and assistant manager. For a while, I thought I was the town mortician, too—if something died around there, apparently it was my job to revive it!

    I was moonlighting in radio to help pay the bills because my law enforcement career needed a financial boost. What some people will do for money! Later, I was scooped up to become a newspaper district manager nearly 400 miles away. Steve had already left the business by the time I got into it. With all those twists and turns, I can’t believe our paths never crossed.

    But the part about your dad is what really stayed with me. Those few familiar words gave the two of you another moment together, laughing as you always had. That’s a beautiful memory, Kiki. “Very nice,” indeed. Your relationship reminded me so much of the one I shared with my dad. He always told me that he was cut out to be a preacher, but that he had been sewn up wrong. And if you had known him, that line fit so f-ing well.

    By the way, I’m home from the hospital. I’m in considerable pain and unable to sleep, but do I ever have stories to tell once I’m up to telling them!

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    1. Oh my friend this is beautiful. I’m sure our dads are chatting right now! They can!! I could listen to your stories all day. You’ve been everywhere and done so much!

      So happy your twists and turns allowed you and Steve to find each other! That’s the best news of all!

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  13. This is a beautiful story and thanks for sharing it. I mute TV commercials these days, but I maybe I need to start playing them again. After reading this, lines from old commercials keep popping up: Mikey likes it, Snap-Crackle-Pop, and of course: Two All-Beef Patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Cheese, Pickles, Onions and A Sesame Seed Bun.

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    1. Oh Diana – thank you. Those other commercials you mentioned – all classics. I still love a Big Mac because of the jingle! The actual burger is now half of its original size. It will probably be the size of a meatball in the next few years.

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  14. This made me laugh and then unexpectedly touched my heart. It’s amazing how something as silly as an old commercial can become part of a family’s private language and eventually carry memories much bigger than the advertisement itself. The moments when your dad still recognized the joke and laughed with you must be incredibly precious now. Sometimes memory holds onto the strangest little things—and perhaps that’s exactly what makes them so beautiful.

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  15. Past memories that involve familiar patterns that return over and over throughout life are indeed precious. Love your story here. Very emotional. Reminds me of the film P’tang, Yang, Kipperbang and the phrase ‘Manana’s not soon enough for me’. A phrase that I should imagine would stay with you for life if said in your youth as in this movie.

    Great story telling as always.

    All the best Kiki. 🙏🏽🍁🍂

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      1. Cheers. It is a very old movie, so not sure where it can be seen. I haven’t seen it since it first came out on television. But the phrase has stayed with me all this time. Hope you have a good day too. 🙏🏽🍁🍂

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  16. I always theorized the concept of fusing education with commercial/pop culture; it would make those ABCs and 123s unforgettable. I may forget how to explain the difference between a compound and complex sentence, but I’ll go to my grave knowing the first and last name of my bologna.

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    1. YES!! Maybe that’s why Schoolhouse Rock always resonated with me. That was some franchise and educated a bunch of us back in the day.

      The Yankees went down last night. That Rasmussen was like Elf throwing snowballs. Boom Boom Boom. Let’s see what happens in Game 2?

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    1. From your mouth to God’s ears my friend! I hope so!

      I was at a 5 am class at gym this morning. I’ll be struggling to keep my eyes open. Caffeine IV drip begins at 6 pm.

      Happy Monday!! 😊

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  19. What a beautiful reminder that the best jingles don’t just sell something—they quietly become part of our family language and sometimes even hold memories we thought were gone.

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    1. Oh I know. I’m not a big fast food girl but there are just so many choices out there these days that Wendy’s kind of took a back seat in the industry. I still pop in for a Frosty if I’m having a super long day!

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      1. Yeah, the options are unlimited now. I want to say that Five Guys, along with the improvements at McDonald’s and Burger King, is just too much competition for them. But the Frosty, my goodness, that’s the best thing they have. The last time I went to Wendy’s, about 10 years ago, I got sick because the burger was too greasy.

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  24. I love this piece because it reminds me how many people go unheard and unseen. They work hard, sometimes their entire lives, yet never seem to get ahead. Imagine putting in all that effort and reaching retirement with no more financial security than you had when you left high school.

    Living with family or renting a home is no measure of failure. What troubles me is how many people have so little choice, despite doing everything they can. Society places barriers in their way, then too often blames them for being unable to get past them.

    I witnessed that as a lawman, and it made me sick. Some of the people I dealt with fell deeper into the system because they could not afford a way out. There was no public transportation, but they still had to get to work. So they drove—sometimes with a suspended license, expired tags, or no insurance. They could not afford to put everything right, and another ticket only pushed that possibility further away.

    There were days I went home carrying considerable guilt because I understood those families’ plight. I was barely making it from paycheck to paycheck myself. I knew how little distance there could be between keeping your head above water and going under.

    The families we seldom notice, doing work we seldom acknowledge, manage the impossible on wages many of us could scarcely imagine living on.

    And when we talk about removing immigrant workers, we ought to consider the people who depend on their work, too. If those workers are forced out and no one takes their place, the consequences will reach far beyond their families.

    Folks may finally notice just how much those unseen people do when the work stops getting done.

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