Latest addition to Duncan’s TV Adland is the MBF “Be Positive” campaign from 2003, featuring Johnny Mercer’s 1946 song, “Accentuate the Positive”. This was one of the first television commercials that got me interested in the art of advertising. The irony is that I’ve waited until now to post on it.
I first got to know this song back in 1989 as part of a jazz quartet in Dunedin. Graeme Nicholas, trombone player, picked up the lyrics in a fitting way…
Gather ’round me, everybody
Gather ’round me, while I preach some
Feel a sermon coming on here
The topic will be sin and that’s what I’m agin’
If you wanna hear my story
Then settle back and just sit tight
While I start reviewing the attitude of doing right…
You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with mister inbetween
You got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
And have faith, or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene
To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark,
What did they do, just when everything looked so dark?
Man, they said, we better
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with mister inbetween