Chapter 7. Marketing Inconsistency

Take a quick test: See if you can name the brands associated with each of these slogans:

  • "Mmm Mmm Good"

  • "The Heartbeat of America"

  • "Don't Leave Home Without It"

  • "Fly the Friendly Skies"

  • "It's the Real Thing"

If you said Campbell's Soup, Chevrolet, American Express, United Airlines, and Coca-Cola, congratulations. And chances are you did, at least if you're over the age of thirty-five. But why?

Marketing consistency, that's why. The advertising campaigns represented by these slogans were so ubiquitous in their time that they became part of our cultural fabric. You may not have even realized that none of the five slogans are in active use any longer.

Steve Pacheco is the longtime director of advertising at FedEx, ...

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