I can't seem to find them anywhere, but if you lived in Vancouver from the 1950s well into the 1970s at least you could not get away from TV ads for Broadway Credit Clothiers.
The same ads ran for decades, 
But they would have versions for all four seasons.
The copy was always the same -- "Men, dress up for (season) at Broadway Credit Clothiers.  Look and listen, men, get an extra suit for an extra dollar at Broadway.  Or if you don't want the extra suit for yourself, get one for a relative or friend
Get an extra suit for an extra dollar at Broadway, 50 easy paces west of Main, Vancouver!
The suits were, frankly terrible.  Cheap and ill fitting off the rack.
But they were also cheap in price so you could wear them for a year or so then throw them away.
To this day if I meet someone from Vancouver who probably lived in the era, I can say, "Men, dress up for (season) at Broadway, and they instantly laugh and finish the quote.



 

I always fondly remember the Honest Ed jingle: "H-O-N-E-S-T-E-D Honest Ed's, Crazy Honest Ed's". It's around somewhere, although I can't quite find it anywhere on the web at the moment. 

This isn't a radio spot at all, but in my journey through some ancient newspapers, I came across this food ad that makes my mouth water - not for the items listed but for those prices!

Why do more Canadians shop at Dominion, than any other store. Why it's mainly because of the meat!

The original lyrics for Honest Ed's was "He sells pins and needles, shoes and sock, shirts and ties and household wax, cigarettes, lighters and guns. H-O-N-E-S-T-E-D. Honest Ed's Crazy Honest Ed's.

"They cut the cigarettes, lighters and guns" out.

I believe I've mentioned previously that Barrie's CKVR was the station most often seen on our TV in the Collingwood area, as well as the Lindsay-Peterborough area after we moved there in the late '80s. Given we watched so much of Channel 3's programming, many of their advertisers (and, in many cases, jingles) became very familiar to us. Among them:

-Foley's (Collingwood) - "You can buy the best of things, at Foley's Furnishings"
-Phil Walker's Huronia Ford (Barrie) - "The right choice right now!"
-Herbie's (Barrie) with Herb Title himself usually chirping his competitors, e.g. Miracle Food Mart, Sobeys, and a rare BiWay Drug World location
-Dunlop's (Moonstone) - "We go out of our way, 'cause you go out of your way, we're out of the way, but we're out of this world!"
-Knob Hill Farms (Weston Rd location) with CKVR staff announcer Doug Moyle on the voiceovers, and those oh so '80s Quantafont Q8 graphics
​

Last edited by Forward Power (May 6, 2024 7:58 pm)

I do like the new Sonnet Insurance TV campaign. For one, it's an actual campaign with varying spots running. Second - the pitchwoman has a great delivery and wonderful facial expressions.

Sidebar re: campaigns - sporting event sponsors should do this. Seeing the same Tim Hortons ad in every break during the World Junior Hockey tournament is just mind-numbing. Telling a story in a series of ads is far more effective.

Calhame wrote:

ABC puts value tops
The laundry detergent that makes good sense
In a one pound two pound three pound box
At thirty nine, sixty nine and ninety nine cents.
ABC detergent

I haven't seen ABC laundry detergent in years. Once a staple of Colgate/Palmolive, it has been produced by Phoenix Brands since 2005.

RadioActive wrote:

Didn't the late, great radio vet Don Daynard once do a TV ad for ABC? Or was it Sunlight?

He sure did! 


 

By the way, the video above is from an interesting YouTube website called "RetroTy," a similar site to the great "Retrontario," which has a lot of local Toronto and Southern Ontario content. Both are worth a visit. 

The former also has a few radio items:

I'm sure there will be another idiotic campaign in the future that will rankle listeners as much as the current ones do.

And by the way, I will never figure out why Alpine Credits changed their commercials from that guy answering phone calls to the very stupid "agents who all claim to have super powers." Those are terrible. At least the previous guy was listenable and sometimes even fun. 

I can't believe no one has mentioned these yet - the classic Alka-Seltzer spots from the 60s and 70s. They won many Clio Awards for best advertising and for a while became part of the language. From "spicy meatballs" and "marshmallowed meatballs" to "I can't believe I ate the whole thing," they were some of the most memorable TV spots ever. 

(And let's not forget the ad that introduced "Whatever Shape Your Stomach's In," which actually became a Top 40 hit.)

Another great series of spots in the 60s came from Volkswagen and its Beetle. 

The first one is the funeral and the second is the snow plow, answering the eternal question about how the the guy who drives it gets there.

OK, one last one. And one of the best ever. It aired around 1971. I'm betting you can sing the chorus.

But it almost never happened. 

'You Deserve a Break Today.' The Story of the Classic McDonald's Jingle That Almost Wasn't

Fun thread, thanks guys, keep 'em coming.