Buying bags of burgers, freaky fast car accidents,
and fighting pizza gremlins are all bygone relics of fast food advertising. Here's why.
"Where's the beef?"
In the '80s, Wendy's wanted customers to know that its hamburgers were beefier than anyone
else's. That's how the famous "Where's the beef?" slogan came into being. Wendy's didn't
call out its competitors by name, but it successfully used this slogan to get the
point across that burgers from other fast food establishments were more bun than beef.
The "Where's the beef?" ads featured the tiny, great-grandmotherly actor Clara Peller. At age 81,
with her small stature and assertive tone, Peller was a true TV sensation, and the slogan
is credited with increasing Wendy's revenue by more than 30%. However, Peller was dismissed after
she appeared in a Prego commercial, seemingly answering the question of "Where's the beef?"
"I found it!"
"Real beef, it's in there."
This was Wendy's primary slogan for only a short time,
but it made a lasting impression. After getting rid of Peller, Wendy's entered
a slump until they introduced founder Dave Thomas to their ads.
The restaurant chain has actually brought back versions of the slogan
for limited-time campaigns. It was most recently revived, with a twist,
for March Madness 2023 as part of Wendy's "Square's the beef" promotion.
"You deserve a break today, at McDonald's!"
In 1971, McDonald's launched its famous "You deserve a break today" campaign,
with the goal of enticing busy and hungry customers looking for an escape
from cooking every day to eat at the chain. The slogan was used on and off for years,
and it's one that's recognized as an all-time great in the world of advertising.
Nearly 30 years after "You deserve a break today" was first introduced,
Advertising Age named it the top jingle of the 20th century. And not just from a selection
of quick-service restaurant slogans, but all slogans across all industries.
Even in light of such high accolades, it doesn't seem that McDonald's ever intends
to bring back the classic slogan, as they dropped their trademark on "You
deserve a break today" back in 2014. That's not something the company would
have done if it intended to reintroduce this beloved slogan, even for nostalgia's sake.
"Have it your way, have it your way."
Burger King kept its long-time slogan "Have it your way" in its marketing for
40 years before nixing it in 2014. The chain, which had long focused on making
sure customers knew Burger King would always be more than happy to accommodate special orders,
decided to replace "Have it your way" with a similar slogan that
had an entirely different meaning: "Be your way", or sometimes just "Your way."
Instead of seeking to differentiate the brand with special orders,
which have since become commonplace in the fast food industry, "Be your
way" conveyed to customers that it was cool to be themselves. But ultimately, the chain
couldn't quit its famous slogan permanently, and the phrase reappeared in a jingle in 2022.
"You gotta eat, you gotta eat Checkers."
For seven years, Checkers/Rally's relied on the tagline "You gotta
eat" as the backbone of the company's marketing strategy,
but the slogan said goodbye in 2007. Not long before that tagline was introduced,
Checkers and Rally's merged to become one company, using the slogan for both. The idea behind it was
to brand the drive-throughs as the ideal place for super-busy people. After all, you might not
always have time to stop and eat in a sit-down establishment, but you do still have to eat.
It's not surprising that Checkers/Rally's stuck with "You gotta eat" for several years,
as the slogan is credited for playing a major role in the restaurant chain's
growth during the early 2000s. Still, fast food franchises have to keep their marketing fresh,
so Checker's decided to make a change. In 2007, the company retired "You gotta eat"
and adopted a new tagline: "Little place. BIG TASTE."
From 2012 to 2014, Arby's used the slogan "Slicing up freshness" as the focal point of its marketing.
This tagline proudly called attention to the fact that the fast food chain serves roast beef
that's sliced in-house, which is a unique offering among the major competing fast-food restaurants.
"Arby's. Slicing up freshness." Sure, you could get sliced meat at Subway,
but Subway didn't do any in-store meat slicing until 2023.
In 2014, Arby's changed its tagline:
"Arby's. We have the meats."
It's a slogan that still seems to be standing the test of time.
Subway's catchy and easy-to-remember "$5 footlong" slogan, which went hand-in-hand
with a pricing promotion, was everywhere for a while.
"Five. Five dollar. Five dollar footlong."
The "$5 footlong" tagline became part of the franchise-based company's nationwide
marketing strategy in 2008, and it stuck around for quite a while — much longer than
many franchise owners would have liked. Sure, offering full-size subs for a low
price attracted customers to the store and drove revenue, but it's hard for a franchisee to turn a
profit on sandwiches when they're required to sell them at such a low price point.
Subway's "$5 footlong" promotion was quietly phased out, though the company has unsuccessfully
tried to reintroduce it a few times since then. The most recent attempt was in 2020,
but that lasted for only two weeks. Rising food costs make it highly
likely that the "$5 footlong" campaign will forever be a thing of the past.
"Jimmy John. Freaky fast delivery."
Jimmy John's used the slogan "Freaky fast delivery" for several years during the 2010s,
but that particular turn of phrase is now gone from the sandwich store's delivery
marketing. The slogan came under fire after drivers for Jimmy John's were
involved in speed-related accidents that resulted in serious injuries,
lawsuits, and financial settlements. It didn't help that an undercover news
investigation caught Jimmy John's drivers speeding as they rushed to deliver on time.
"I mean, everybody does it."
Even with all of that, Jimmy John's didn't give up on the "freaky fast" part of the slogan. In 2019,
the company introduced its "Freaky Fast Rewards" customer loyalty program.
"Think outside the bun."
If that saying is still stuck in your head, it's been there for quite some time. Taco
Bell stopped using it in 2012 when it introduced a new slogan: "Live Mas".
"Think outside the bun" was an obvious play on the idea of "thinking outside the box." Sure,
burgers may be the most widely available fast food option,
but this slogan reminded quick service seekers that there are items that don't come in buns.
It's been reported that Taco Bell adopted "Live mas" as its tagline
in an effort to position the Tex-Mex chain as more of an upscale lifestyle
experience rather than focusing so much on just satisfying the basic need to eat.
Chick-fil-A has featured those sign-writing cows in its advertising messages for so long
that we wouldn't be surprised if you presumed that "Eat more chicken" had always been the
company's primary slogan. That one has been around since 1995, and the restaurant also
continues to use the tagline "The Original Chicken Sandwich." But what came before?
Back in the 1960s, Chick-fil-A used the darkly ironic phrase "The best
thing that ever happened to a chicken" as its tagline. The slogan was dropped from
the logo in 1963 and all but forgotten. It was the "Eat More Chicken" slogan that the
restaurant was more interested in; at least thirty competing restaurants received cease
and desist letters for simply using the phrase "eat more" in their advertising.
"Time to make the donuts."
"Time to make the donuts" factored prominently into Dunkin' Donuts advertising from the early
1980s through most of the '90s. In every "Time to make the donuts" commercial,
a bleary-eyed man known to TV viewers as Fred the Baker toiled early in the morning
to make sure fresh donuts would be available as customers started coming in. As Fred worked,
and throughout his weary life, he uttered the famous slogan over and over.
"Time to make the donuts."
Though long-gone, the "Time to make the donuts" campaign is iconic because of
how long Fred the Baker's weary mantra has remained in our cultural memory.
Dunkin' company leadership has made it clear that there are no plans to revive the slogan or the
campaign in the future, having since moved on to focus on beverages instead of donuts,
and their new slogan, "America runs on Dunkin." The campaign wouldn't be the
same without actor Michael Vale, who passed away in 2005 after filming over
a thousand commercials for different brands. He had a memorable run playing
dairy magnate Sam Breakstone prior to his fame as the early-morning baker.
"Cover my cottage cheese, you numbskull!" "Yes Mr. Breakstone!"
"Yes Mr. Breakstone!"
During the 1980s, Dominos Pizza introduced its catchy,
colorful "Avoid the Noid" advertising campaign, designed to drive home the
chain's commitment to getting pizza safely to customers within 30 minutes.
"Avoid the Noid!"
The campaign prominently featured an animated character called the Noid — a
kind of gremlin figure that focused on ruining your pizza before it arrived. But
Domino's would get your pizza to you no matter what, thus avoiding the villainous Noid. The
character appeared in video games, as toys, and almost had a Saturday morning cartoon.
Domino's stuck with the "Avoid the Noid" campaign through the mid-1990s,
despite serious controversy when a man with the last name Noid held up a Domino's at gunpoint,
believing that the slogan was addressing him personally. Domino's Pizza has since
moved on to other slogans, but the chain did actually reintroduce "Avoid the Noid" in 2021
in a campaign that presented him trying to outsmart driverless delivery vehicles.
"Pizza pizza!"
"Pizza! Pizza!" was the tagline for Little Caesars for a long time,
first launched in 1979 to accompany a new two-for-one pizza deal. They stuck with the
tagline until 1997, as once the company changed its business model to no longer
emphasize two-for-one pizza deals, the slogan didn't fit quite so well.
"Pizza pizza!"
"I used to think it was cute, but now he's starting to bug me."
Of course, if you live in Canada, you've probably never heard the little Roman
mascot utter those words; because of a Canadian restaurant chain actually called Pizza Pizza,
Little Caesar's couldn't use their slogan North of the US border.
Little Caesars replaced "Pizza! Pizza!" with "Hot-N-Ready," a slogan designed to convey that
you can stop by Little Caesar's anytime to snag a freshly baked pizza without having to call ahead.
"No calling? No waiting? There's no rules!"
"Put your shirt back on!"
"There's one rule!"
The company temporarily brought back "Pizza! Pizza!" in 2012, but Little Caesars has stuck with
"Hot-N-Ready" as its primary slogan since it was first introduced, emphasizing that what
distinguishes Little Caesars is that it's a pizza chain that truly offers fast food.