“The Gift that Keeps On Giving”
We’re gong nuts here at work.
Was it a phone company, or FTD? I wanna say it was one of those.
Don’t know about the FTD, but I’ve heard it referred to an STD before.
It was a phone company, one of the baby bells, but it’s difficult to figure out which one since the phrase has been picked up by a huge number of companies.
i thot it that it was a diamond ad.
Book of the Month??
Or maybe as others have said, the/a phone company. Specifically though, I would think long-distance gift certificates. A bouquet of flowers doesn’t really “keep on giving”.
Was it for organ transplants ?
A search of Google brought this story. What would you do to get rid of a pair of moleskin trousers?
[cranky boss]
I don’t know. Whose ad slogan is this, “GET BACK TO WORK!!!”
[/cranky boss]
hunch: magazine subscription
For what it’s worth, a quick search of a Newspaper database only take the phrase back to 1984. That doesn’t mean that the ad campaign was then, only that it was used as a catchphrase by then.
I remember it as a Kodak camera ad from long ago. Wags have applied it to herpes and other STD’s. A later Kodak camera ad at Christmas time labelled the box with the camera in it,“Open Me First!”
–Nott
It looks like it may have originated with Victor Phonograph at the turn of last century.
The general problem [of creating desire for the product was] continuously attacked from four separate, carefully ratioed angles: (1) the excellence and superior performance of the product; (2) the pleasure and advantages (en-tertainment and education) of ownership; (3) the availability of the world’s best artists; and (4) the gift idea (“the gift that keeps on giving”). The availability of the world’s best artists was thought by the company to be the most effective. 17 (Aldridge, 1964/1983, p. 49)
I doubt that the exact phrase originated with Victor.
That’s the sentence which immediately precedes your quote from the article.
The quote you gave is possibly/probably from 1983.
I see what you’re getting at samclem and perhaps you’re right.
The fact that Aldridge refers to a post hoc analysis by Victor doesn’t matter because Victor was bought out by RCA in 1929 and had no doubt done their analysis by then.
If Aldridge used the same phrase in the 1964 edition of the quote we may know more but I can’t dig up anything.
I seem to remember it as a United Way ad campaign.