Stan Freberg and Smucker's

[rowrrbazzle]

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I have a great Stan Freberg story. He was leaving an ad agency on a Friday afternoon, and he walked down to the elevator to find a guy that looked like he was about to be executed. The guy looked extremely sad and worried. Stan asked him what the hell was wrong with him and the guy said, “I just got an account and I don’t know what the hell to do with it. It’s called ‘Smuckers’ and I just have no idea what to do with it.” And Stan turned to the guy and said, “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good,” and stepped off the elevator.

There’s a slightly different version here http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/2812938/posts#23

Freberg also came up with Smucker’s slogan “with a name like Smucker’s it has to be good”! Of course they had to change his version a little. Stan’s ended “it better be good!” Too edgy!

Only a true genius could inspire a successful ad campaign with a throwaway phrase.

The ad exec credited with the slogan was Lois Wyse. Lois Wyse, 80; writer, advertising exec coined Smucker's slogan

[CalMeacham]

My Spider Sense is activated. That’s a story in the “too good to be true” vein. Freberg was very well known for his clever, witty, and edgy ads, so he’d be the natural one to attribute it to. The Smucker’s ad line – “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good” – naturally invites snarky comments. In its early years, Saturday Night Live did a skit based on it:

Jams – carries the Smucker’s slogan (“With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good!”) to absurd extremes, promoting jams that taste so good that the manufacturers dare to give them horrible and disturbing names. Most members of the first-season cast appear as spokesmen, each trying to outdo the other on the “best” jam in the following order: Jane Curtin – Fluckers: “It’s got to be good!”
Chevy Chase – Nose Hair: “You can imagine how good it must be… mm–mm!”
Dan Aykroyd – Death Camp: “Just look for the barbed wire on the label!”
John Belushi – Dog Vomit & Monkey Pus: “This stuff has got to be terrific!”
Chevy Chase – Painful Rectal Itch: “The taste? (kisses fingers)”
Dan Aykroyd – Mangled Baby Ducks: “Great jam! Beautiful jam!”
John Belushi – 10,000 Nuns and Orphans (Jane: “What’s so bad about that? John: They were all eaten by rats!”) “Oh so good!”
Garrett Morris then brings in a jar that’s “So disgusting you can’t say it on television!”

List of Saturday Night Live commercial parodies

I suppose the story is possibly true, but I’d bet that it’s due to imagination and/or someone misremembering the SNL skit.

[rowrrbazzle]

Actually, I did wonder about the truth of the story because he didn’t include it in his book, It Only Hurts When I Laugh.