"Got ______?" Moratorium

I'm reminded of a great Tony Sorprano quote when he was annoyed with a conversation that was waxing nostalgic as he dismissed Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri and Peter "Beansie" Gaeta with "'Remember when?...' is the lowest form of conversation."  And since I play a marketing expert on TV, I hereby decree "Got _____?" to the be the lowest form of marketing and ask those of you that have found and replaced the direct object in the great campaign by the Milk Processor's Board in the early 90's with your own product's category to please stop.  Please.  For the love of creativity.

The reason why this campaign worked so well was due to its simplicity.  The facile tagline "Got Milk?" served as a great reminder for milk drinkers and purchasers to make sure they weren't out of milk in their fridge and as a reminder to those lapsed consumers that milk should be part of their beverage consideration set.  For the first few years, the simplicity of these messages translated to other categories effortlessly and it was easy for smaller companies to have a memorable message simply by riding on the coattails of a highly memorable and effective campaign.  I have no qualms about this, but what had started in 1995 had ballooned to Mad Libian proportions.  Let us review what else was influential in 1995 that have since been mercifully taken out to the metaphorical pasture and had its metaphorical brains blown out:

1) The Year of Not Crazy Mel Gibson

In 1995, Mel Gibson took home Oscars for Best Film and Best Director.  He was the Brad Pitt of the 90's where girls wanted to sleep with him and guys wanted to be his friend (due in no small part to his breakout performance in Lethal Weapon and the Mad Max series).  But a few anti-semitic remarks combined with measuring the bosom brix content of law enforcement as well as allegedly threatening his mail order wife has landed him in the lowest of Q-scores, on par with Kip Drordy. 

"Prima Nocte my ars!"

Did he make up "Sugar#@!s?"  I've seriously never heard of that one before.

 

 Bonus: Play the "Find Mel Gibson Game"!

Keep looking...

Agent Smith

Video game and meat cologne salesman

Baron von Munchausen

2) Top Song - Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio

1995: In the hood, we refer to the animal on his shoulder as a "ghetto bird."

2010: Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage... to Irrelevanceville.

3) Popular Website Design
Websites that launched in the mid-90's, while progressive at the time look like a templates from Powerpoint 03.  I think pictures speak louder than words... especially if the words start with a "Got" and ends with a question mark.  Can we just agree to move on?

Here is further proof that the "Got _____?" mnemonic falls on deaf ears: do a Google search on the most asinine categories and more likely than not, it will be seriously represented.  Witness the following unabashed members of the Got _____? golden circle (compiled by the Milk Processor Board themselves):

 And last but not least, I leave with you my #1 marketing rule of thumb.  If Hemorrhoids are doing it, you need to move on.

That's a word that just looks weird when you spell it out.

Do you have any honorable mention slogans that should be put out of their misery?  I'd like to nominate "ordinary to extraordinary" next.