Sunday, June 10, 2007

Ad and Commercial Quotes - Random Trivia Answers

  • A1) Visa credit cards. Their more recent "Priceless" ads have been everywhere, too, including sports arenas banners and Saturday Night Live spoofs.
  • A2) Crest toothpaste. The first fluoride-containing toothpaste also had kids saying, "Look, Ma, no cavities".
  • A3) Brylcreem. The hair styling product is mostly water, mineral oil, and beeswax.
  • A4) Marines. The Navy has used the slogans "Full Speed Ahead" and "Accelerate Your Life", and the Air Force suggests that you "Aim High".
  • A5) Canada Dry ginger ale. Before the heydey of karaoke, Jimmy Connors and other celebrities monotonically sang this jingle.
  • A6) Morton salt. Calcium silicate, which replaced magnesium carbonate, keeps the NaCl flowing even in humid conditions.
  • A7) M&M's. The candy-coated chocolates began life under the name Smarties in Europe but had to be renamed for the U.S. market.
  • A8) Coca-Cola. The soda really did once contain trace amounts of cocaine, possibly more than the company will admit.
  • A9) Sunkist. The soda cracked the top ten within three years and is still the best-selling orange soda.
  • A10) Chiffon margarine. Another ad series warned, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature".
  • A11) Taco Bell. As a competitor of McDonald's and Burger King, the company also wants you to "Think outside the bun".
  • A12) Alka-Seltzer. TV Guide named the 1969 "Spicy Meatball" ad the #2 television commercial of all time (behind Apple's "1984").
  • A13) Tropicana Twisters. The drink comes in many standard single flavors plus combinations of two or three fruits.
  • A14) Clairol hair coloring. The substance penetrates the hair shaft rather than just covering it.
  • A15) 9-Lives cat food. The finicky cat, whose real name was Lucky, began making his preference known in 1968.
  • A16) South Pacific. The original tune is "Gonna wash that man right out of my hair".
  • A17) Energizer. The Energizer bunny has indeed kept going, and going, and going... since 1989.
  • A18) Perdue. Frank Perdue himself appeared in the commercials until he was unable to and was replaced by his son Jim.
  • A19) A&W Root Beer. The letters stand for the names of creators Roy Allen and Frank Wright.
  • A20) Delta Air Lines. The "Airline of the South" is based in Atlanta, Georgia, "is ready when you are", and "gets you there".
  • A21) Maxwell House. The coffee was named for a Nashville, Tennesee hotel that had burned down. The slogan supposedly was a direct quote from President Theodore Roosevelt.
  • A22) Greyhound Bus lines. Swedish immigrant Carl Wickman founded the company in 1914.
  • A23) Frosted Flakes. The presweetened cereal was ironically created to prevent kids from spooning too much sugar onto their flakes.
  • A24) Volkswagen. The real German word means "driving pleasure".
  • A25) Andre. The company introduced a screw-top bottle for its low-priced bubbly just in time to ring in 2005.
  • A26) Prego. Introduced by the Campbell Soup Company in 1981, the tomato sauce's name is Italian for "I pray" and is a common response to "Thank you".
  • A27) Army. After two decades, they changed the slogan to "An Army of One" in 2001. "Strength for now. Strength for later" was also used.
  • A28) Zenith. The company invented the first portable radio and the first wireless remote control.
  • A29) Yellow Pages. AT&T opened up its market to competitors by failing to renew its trademark on "Yellow Pages" in the 1950s.
  • A30) Pringles potato chips (officially they're potato crisps). The saddle-shaped reconstituted potato snacks are also marketed as being much less greasy than regular potato chips.
  • A31) Secret. The deodorant and antiperspirant began its life as a cream in 1956. A roll-on version debuted two years later.
  • A32) American Express cards. David Ogilvy of Ogilvy & Mather created the 1975 ad, featuring Karl Malden.
  • A33) Texaco. The company's logo is an upper-case 'T' inside a five-pointed star.
  • A34) McDonald's. When Dick and Mac McDonald founded the company in 1940, fast food wasn't an alternative to the home-cooked, sit-down meal.
  • A35) Noxema Medicated Shave Cream. Although initially marketed in the late 1960s for men's facial hair, the product is also used by women to shave their arms and legs.
  • A36) Avis. The world's largest car rental company was, and still is, Hertz.
  • A37) Bud Light. The bull terrier began hawking the beer in a 1987 Super Bowl commercial.
  • A38) Campbell's Soup. The famous condensed soup, with half of the water removed, was created in 1897. The cans sport a gold medal won at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
  • A39) Mazda. Their current "Zoom zoom" ads hope you feel the need for speed.
  • A40) BMW. The Bavarian Motor Works (Bayerische Motoren Werke in German) began crafting high end automobiles in 1913.
  • A41) Wisk. The ads obnoxiously but effectively made Wisk the top-selling liquid detergent in the 1960s and 1970s.
  • A42) Wendy's. The actress, Clara Peller, was fired the following year for claiming, "I found it" in Prego spaghetti sauce commercials.
  • A43) Folgers (in your cup). James Folger bought out his partners to create the San Francisco-based J. A. Folger & Co. in 1872.
  • A44) Tropicana orange juice. Its logo features a drinking straw inserted directly into an orange.
  • A45) Pepsi. The product has had more than 40 slogans since 1898.
  • A46) Parker pens. George Stafford Parker began manufacturing fountain pens in Wisconsin in 1891, but the company is now based in England.
  • A47) Panasonic. Since 2003, the company has sold "Ideas for life".
  • A48) Betty Crocker. The brand's fictitious name was initially created by the Washburn Crosby Company in 1921 to respond to written customer inquiries and evolved over time as the company merged into General Mills seven years later.
  • A49) Sprite. The Coca-Cola Company introduced the lemon-lime 7-Up imitation in 1961.
  • A50) Doritos. Nacho Cheese was the only flavor from 1966 until Cool Ranch debuted in 1987.
  • A51) AT&T. Back in 1982, the Baby Bells had yet to be split off, and MCI was the only real competitor.
  • A52) Schlitz. The beverage also recommended that you "Go for the gusto".
  • A53) Busch. The beverage began as Busch Bavarian Beer in 1955.
  • A54) Paul Masson. The French immigrant was actually known as the "Champagne King of California", but Orson Welles's pitch made the company famous.
  • A55) Burger King. They wanted to let you know that fast service didn't mean you couldn't "Have it your way".
  • A56) American Airlines. American is the largest airline in the world in both passenger volume and fleet size.
  • A57) Lay's potato chips. In 1944, Frank Lay's company was the first to advertise snacks on television.

(Bonus answer: Heinz. They once had 57 varieties of pickles and condiments, although it was over 60 by the time they chose to use the number on their products.)

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