What makes you buy a certain brand of cereal or even a certain kind of car?

Of course you buy what you want. But have you ever thought about why you prefer one brand of something over another?

Sure, there’s the power of “brand loyalty,” but what about the power of those catchy slogans for McDonald’s or Chevrolet, for example? Surely those have influenced your decision about what to buy – at least once in a while. So today we’ll take a look at some persuasive slogans as well as some of the mascots that uttered them.

We rightfully think of big companies when we think of advertisers who frequently try to influence our daily decisions, but the U.S. government runs plenty of its own “ads” meant to influence our decisions that go by the term “public service announcements” or PSAs.

Remember when ads featuring crash-test dummies Vince and Larry warned us to buckle our safety belts and reminded us that “You could learn a lot from a dummy?” Or the voice-over of a crying Iron Eyes Cody (played by Italian-American actor Espera Oscar de Corti) reminding us that “People start pollution. People can stop it.”?

Harken back for a moment to the good old days when McGruff the Crime Dog and his actor buddy Karl Malden urged us to “Take a bite outta crime,” and Smokey Bear (not “Smokey the Bear”) admonished: “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

One spokesanimal whose name does contain the definite article is Tony the Tiger (who proved to be more popular than the cereal’s other original alliterative mascots Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu). He continues to remind us that Frosted Flakes (which were originally called “Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes of Corn”) aren’t just good, “They’re gr-r-reat!”

That gr-r-reatness brings to mind some other products whose ads feature spellings of words that are also, let’s say, creative. While Campbell’s soups have long been described as “M’m! M’m! Good!” and Kraft Heinz tells us “there’s always room for Jell-O,” Red Bull has more recently said it “gives you wiiings.” I agree with the first two, not sure about the last one.

If it’s Froot Loops you’re looking for, take the advice of Toucan Sam and “Follow your nose, it always knows.” Then there’s Lucky the Leprechaun, who recommends Lucky Charms because they’re “magically delicious,” while Sonny the Cuckoo Bird is simply “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!”

Ad slogans for some products just seem to work well together. If you can answer “Yes” to the California Milk Processor Board’s question “Got milk?” then you should probably also have a package of Oreos on hand since they just happen to be “Milk’s favorite cookie.”

Slogans for some other products don’t seem to work as well together. For instance, Apple’s “Think different” slogan had to have been a jab at IBM’s “Think” motto. And then there was Clara Peller’s wondering, “Where’s the beef?” commercial for Wendy’s, which worked very well for the company . . . until she took a job pitching Prego pasta sauce with ground sirloin beef (for which she rejoiced “I found it! I finally found it!”) and was promptly fired by Wendy’s.

But what has to be the most unfortunate advertising slogan ever is one Ford used for its subcompact car, the Pinto, whose gas tank tended to explode if the car got rear-ended. According to the American Museum of Tort Law, Ford’s “radio spots had included the line: ‘Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.'”

Understandably, Ford’s advertising agency, J Walter Thompson, dropped the line.

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.

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