Wyn Drabble: Slogans to entice ice cream lovers

Wyn Drabble takes a look at the slogans of early New Zealand ice creams. Photo / File

These days you can pay mega-bucks for advertising supremos to come up with catchy slogans, tailor-made for you.

I don't know how much Wellington City Transport paid advertisers but it certainly must have been upwards of $17.50 (plus lunches) for the advertising agency to have come up with "Go Wellington".

For Horowhenua, "The Horizons Region" can't have come cheaply. And not without a lot of high fives across the advertising agency's boardroom table.

I was reminded of how far advertisers have come when a few months ago I was writing about Ashburton's historic ice cream brand, Snowdrop. Their slogan – and they probably had to think it up themselves – was "Super cold".

So, all they've done is taken a natural trait of ice cream and written it on a poster. But I suppose it's snappier than "Never warm".

I hope they didn't come into dispute with Palmerston North's Glacier Ice Cream which existed around the same time and ran the same slogan. Given there was no internet at the time and that even texts had to be delivered by horseback, it's possible that each was ignorant of the other's use of it.

It led me to explore the advertising of other early New Zealand ice creams and the most fitting, across-the-board descriptor has to be naïve.

Righton's of Whakatane, to sell their "health-giving pure ice cream", used "Oh Boy! – It's Delicious!" They must have been quite busy, however, as they also produced an aerated water and a cordial. I don't know what the slogans were for those but, for the water, I'm guessing, "It's aerated!"

Gisborne's Freesia Ice Cream used the simile "pure as the eternal snows" and supported it with an imperative, "Ask for it by name". My feeling is that they too thought those up themselves.

Wyn Drabble

Under the snow simile appeared, "Here is a frozen delicacy that is also one of the purest and most wholesome of foods." That might raise nutritionists' eyebrows these days.

Also from Gisborne came Wise's Ice Cream. "Serve Wise's Ice Cream and make a real hit." You can certainly feel the persuasive power of the italics. It was "obtainable at most shops in large cartons for 1/3d." I particularly like "most shops".

Alliteration and pun were the language techniques of choice for Nelson's Snowball Ice Cream – "A Food not a Fad" and "Often Licked but Never Beaten" – but neither managed to save them from liquidation.

The pun was obviously popular in Nelson as, a few decades after Snowball, Havmor Ice Cream called their product "the cream of ice cream".

My probing research revealed that "It's Often Licked but Never Beaten" was also used by Te Aroha's Barlow's Ice Cream and later by Tip Top.

In Dunedin, Royal Ice Cream ran with "Ask for Royal, it's the Creamy Ice Cream" but perhaps pushed their luck a little with "It's good and good for you." Christchurch's Apex Ice Cream kept it a little looser with "A Food and a Treat Combined".

Peerless of Oamaru kept it simple and snappy with "The Finest Made".

Alpine Ice Cream of Huntly produced an iced novelty called Twinkle on a Stick. Whatever that was, one shudders to think. Best not to think about it.

So, there you have it from the days when my memory tells me a cone ice cream used to cost thruppence. Advertisers no longer produce such naïve claims and slogans for their iced confectionery. Now, they tend to go for something punchy, something that pops and fizzes and … well … costs a lot.

Real Mövenpick Ice Cream Slogan: We're not just expensive, we're very expensive.

Mövenpick's Advertising Agency's (imagined) Response: So, you will find, are we.

*Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.