November 23, 2019 - 71 - "Becky, the Queen of Carpets"

     I'm flying with a young man named Nick.  Nick mentioned he'd found some ads on YouTube that "reminded him of his youth."  (He's 33.)

     He's from Saint Louis and explained there was a carpet store there when he was growing up, owned by a woman named Becky.  Becky came up with a series of ads featuring herself as:  The Queen of Carpets.

     I have dedicated a lot of my brain-space to a) bad advertising (I specialize in arcane, semi-lame local jingles from my further-back-in-time youth), and b) the seeking out, and sharing of particularly Loud and Ugly carpets.  (See my blog on the topic here:  Loud Ugly Carpets of the World.)

     I'm sure you can imagine how intrigued I was by Nick's carpet commercial finds.

          "Tell me more!",  I enthused.





     Nick went one better and showed me video after video from this series; each more fabulous than the one before!

    Here's the scenario: 
          -Becky owns a carpet store. 
          -Becky knows a lot about carpet. 
          -Becky is, therefore, the Queen of Carpet. 
          -This title causes Becky to dress up in dramatic long dresses, sport tiaras, and wave around  scepters, while also...
          -Talking about various deals on carpet and tile.
             (  See the visuals here:   "$19 Carpet Sale"   )

     My absolute favorite is the one where:
          -Becky dives off the St. Louis Arch
          -She aims for the flying carpet 'driven'(?) by her trusty sidekick, Wanda, (The Princess of Tile)
          -Wanda begs her not to do it
          -Becky jumps anyway, and then...
          -Talks about various deals on carpet and tile.
              (Check it out here:   "Jump Again"   )

     Fabulous stuff.  I was so glad Nick shared this historic ad campaign with me.

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   Later that evening, on the crew van we got into a super deep and important discussion about various jingles.

   I sang this KVIL jingle, circa 1970-something:

      "A tale of two cities,
      Fort Worth and Dallas,
      Each day of the year,
      Just listen you'll hear.

      A tale of two cities,
      where we love to beeeee,
      Fort Worth and Dallas,
      Stereo 103!  (K - V - I - L....K - V - I - L..."

    Ahhh, sigh, I remember it like it was yesterday.

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     Nick countered with his memories of the campaign:  'Come See the Softer Side of Sears'.  We found some of these on YouTube and sang along with them.

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    When we got to the hotel our van driver even got in on the action by sharing his memory of a jingle for our airline; vintage late 80's.

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     Apparently advertising works.  I'm not sure if these companies made a lot of money from us, but we sure do remember the ads all of these years later.

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"The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second.  We bombard people with sensation.  That substitutes for thinking."

-Ray Bradbury

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"Advertising has done more to cause the social unrest of the 20th century than any other single factor."

-Clare Boothe Luce

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