I was doing the “What is this stupid BOGO thing” but I was doing it ~ 5 years ago and prior to that don’t recall ever encountering it. I don’t tend to watch television (and when I do it’s most often not a station that has commercials, and when it is I switch off the sound until the show comes back on). So that might have something to do with it. Now I get email spam with BOGO in the subject line. And Facebook and other website ads.
Telling someone to bog off seems like a legitimate British insult.
It is!
It’s a somewhat old-school playground insult of the kind that would get you a stern look but not properly told off… Which makes that acronym even better IMO.
I think “BOGOF” is a British thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the US.
Now that that’s settled, who’s going to tell @AHunter3 about YOLO?
mmm
For me, it’s the last 24 months or so. Took me awhile, but I’m seeing it enough now that I’m not confused by it.
FOMO, fear of missing out. And FAFO, fuck around, find out.
One may have FOMO about a BOGO, but YOLO, so best not to FAFO?
The first time I saw BOGO was in a men’s clothing shop at University Town Center in La Jolla ca 1980. Their front windows had alternating banners, one that screamed “BOGO” with “buy one, get one free” in smaller type, and the other said “GOING OUT for BUSINESS”, with the ‘for’ in tiny type.
A more recent acronym I learned was FIFO, which I thought meant ‘fuck it, find out.’ I was wrong!
That may well be the initial use of it that I remember, too.
I have a memory of Bo Jackson (shortly after the hip injury ended his athletic career) doing a shoe store ad, along the lines of “Bo Knows BOGO,” and it may well have been for Payless, but I’ve been unable to find a copy of it on Youtube.
I’m stealing this. 
OK, I did find another nonce usage from 1980, but nothing further back. The first national chain I could find using it was Arby’s in 1991. 1993 seems to be when it first starts showing up consistently, pretty much in grocery stores. 2002 looks like the inflection point where it really took off.
Here in Florida, one of our major grocery stores (Publix) uses BOGO in their advertisements.
I’ve always been more a fan of BOGOF, for the reasons stated above. I’ve been a hard battle, and I’m glad to see some others are on the same side.
I think I first saw it on one of those movable-letter signs outside of a store, where verbiosity is at a premium. That was maybe 20 years ago?
In my head I translate those offers as “buy two, get 25% off”, which makes it sound a lot less attractive.
I used to live near a Payless, and would take advantage of their BOGO sales whenever I needed new shoes.
Since I graduated from college and then moved out on my own in 1996/1997, it’s the period where I first would have been doing consistent shopping for myself and actually looking for deals and values (yes I’m a “whippersnapper” compared to some of you!). So while there’s plenty of evidence it existed before that era, that’s why I think (and vaguely recall) this period being where I first came into contact with it.
Still think it wasn’t until a bit later that BOGO overtook 2-for-1 sale terminology at my local Smiths (Safeway) and Kroger (King Soopers). Again I think 5ish years later.
ETA - that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used elsewhere or internally, but about consistently, and I think the BOGO being pronounced “bo-go” rather that “buy one get one” was a bit later still.
I maintained a computer program in the late 1980s where there were promo codes BOGO and BOGOH. This was a grocery chain in the US.
At the parent company, a British supermarket chain, used BOGOF. So at least in the business it goes back 40 years at least.