A couple of issues ago, amidst a fever of communications acronyms, I tossed in ‘LSMFT,’ and offered $5 to anyone who was old enough to identify it. Barry Slater of JAN Kelley Marketing, in Burlington, Ont., met the challenge (and declined the five bucks!)

Barry correctly pointed out that in the evil old days of cigarette advertising, LSMFT proudly stood for ‘Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.’ He also provided one of the general-public substitutes for LSMFT, of which there were many, some even printable. Among those were ‘Loose Suspenders Mean Falling Trousers’ and ‘Lord, Save Me From Truman.’

Barry continued, ‘After close to 40 years in this business, it’s still amazing to me what unique, strong branding can do to ‘memory-peg’ a product into our brains forever. Get it right in the first place, then stick with it is the learning – lost on so many practitioners today.’

Thank you, Barry, and amen. I wonder who it was at the American Tobacco Company, more than half a century ago, who said, ‘Hey, let’s take our slogan and reduce it to a set of initials!’ I’ll almost guarantee that the first reply was, ‘Boy, is that a dumb idea!’ But they did it, and LSMFT quickly embedded itself in 200 million North American brain cells.

Whatever works. Of course, today’s ‘creatives’ – there was no such word in Lucky Strike’s time – are far too cool to make initials out of their slogans. (‘JDI’? ‘ILI’? ‘WAYDAW’?) Actually, you can’t even say ‘slogan’ any more. It’s beneath us, smacks of hucksterism and used-car salesmen. You have to say ‘theme line.’

‘Memory pegs,’ as Barry Slater says, seem to be ‘lost on so many practitioners today.’ What’s big now is the spectacular one-shot, the nudge-nudge-wink-wink shocker that gets talked about in the office kitchen the morning after the Super Bowl. But is there any continuity to these one-shots, anything that’s likely to hang in the mind for 50 hours, let alone 50 years? Don’t bet on it.

And yet there’s hope. A campaign that I’ve admired before in this space, the Canadian Bud Light Institute advertising, always ends its spots with Isaac, the Love Boat bartender, pointing at the camera and saying, ‘This calls for a Bud Light!’ He’s usually not relevant to what’s gone before, and I’ll bet there’s been agitation to dump him, but you know what he does? He provides continuity. He’s a memory peg. He’s good advertising.

And yet there’s more hope. I was recently stuck in a fast food line on the New York State Thruway, surrounded by a bunch of kids of about the same age Barry Slater and I were when LSMFT was king. It was a bi-gender group, and therefore, naturally, the boys were trying to be incredibly witty to impress the girls. (From John Burghardt’s high school yearbook: ‘His sense of humour brightens any crowd.’)

As his brand of wit, one young man kept flapping his arms like a duck and quacking, ‘AFLAC!’ In case you’ve somehow missed it, AFLAC is an American insurance company that uses a spokesduck to quack its name at key points during a long-running series of commercials. The spots are corny as hell, but they are memorable, they have raised AFLAC’s profile immeasurably, and they have clearly embedded themselves on America’s brain cells. That quacker on the Thruway may not have broken any hearts that afternoon, but he will remember AFLAC until his beard is as gray as mine.

AFLAC is good advertising. Bud Light is good advertising. LSMFT was good advertising. Hmmmm, LSMFT. Lasting Slogans Mean Financial Tumescence.

John Burghardt has been president of a $35-million advertising agency, written films for the Shah of Iran, brought home a Cannes Gold Lion, and godfathered the Cookie Monster with Jim Henson. Not considering himself a Type A personality but acting like one, he is currently involved in two New York State theatre projects, a children’s multimedia concept, and a new tourism communications firm known as Geo*dentity. He also returns phone calls and e-mails, at 416 693-5072 and burgwarp@rogers.com, respectively.