By Phil Creighton
THE point of advertising jingles is to stick in your head. And the best ones do for a lot longer than the products themselves.
Ask people of a certain age what colour Esso is, and they’ll tell you: blue.
Which mints are too good to hurry? Why, Murray Mints, of course.
And they can’t tell you this anymore – nanny stateism or something – but a Mars a day helps you rest, work and play.
Every Christmas Eve, around 11pm, while busy with my Christmas shopping at the local petrol station I recall some that really obscure adverts that have stuck in the noggin, taking up valuable brain storage space that could otherwise be used for important stuff, like the kings and queens of England, or other MasterMind-winning trivia.
The first is a promotion Shell did back in the early 1990s with Star Trek. It was a scratchcard game where you had the chance to win holidays and cash, all backed up with a pretty advert. Enthralling.
But the jingle that lingers longer is one for its competitor: back to Esso, but 1984, where an advert told us to find the tiger and win £20,000.
The internet has no memory of it, so this could be a load of old toot, but it was another scratchcard game. Find three tigers, or something, and you’d walk away with the cash.
Of course, no such thing as a free lunch, unless you’re a tiger and there’s some picnickers at the safari park, so the chance of winning was minimised.
These scratchcard promotions straddled initiatives such as Tiger Tokens and Collect and Select. Essentially a late 20th century take on Green Shield Stamps, they allowed drivers to amass points which could then be traded for items, including drinking glasses, Tiger T-shirts, and teasmaids.
Other garages offered model cars in exchange for these tokens. I tried to give one away as a Christmas present and then friend complained bitterly that it was a cheapskate thing to do, despite having to buy a squillion pounds worth of petrol to get enough points to get the hot wheels.
Petrol stations have long since stopped giving tokens away, and people can no longer trade in their stamps. Times have changed.
Just as they have with the instore shop. Whereas once my Christmas shopping list was restricted to Magic Tree air fresheners, overpriced chocolate bars and two litre tubs of screenwash, now they’ve gone a bit upmarket.
It’s not the same.
My late-night desperation supermarket sweep isn’t just limited to Christmas Eve for starters. I can now have a leisurely lie-in and get gift ideas on Christmas Day as many garages stay open.
And they are no longer just little cabins of despair, but full-blown retail experiences, often courtesy of supermarkets such as M&S and Sainsbury’s. So, alongside the road atlases and the troll doll keyrings, the several years old CDs and gallons of oil, there are exquisite chocolate boxes, Christmas cakes, gift sets and surprises.
It kind of takes the fun out of it all.
After all, Christmas shopping is a rather stressful experience at the best of times. The beauty of the petrol stations of old was the range was limited, the choice was take it or leave it.
Still, look out for me this Christmas Eve, joining the ranks of others who prefer to leave their Christmas shopping to the very, very, very, very last moment.
Ad jingle bells aside, there’s no tigers with £20,000, and Scotty won’t be beaming me up. Well, not this side of Christmas Day lunch.
And a very merry Christmas to all of you at home.
Phil Creighton is the editor of Reading Today and Wokingham Today
