For several years I believed I was immune to the importuning and trickery of television advertising. After all, I am an educated person with a doctorate in English and a firm believer in the true and careful application of critical thinking. I hasten to explain that these days critical thinking in higher education is a sacred shibboleth that no one dast oppose. Raise the flag of critical thinking and everyone scurries to stand at attention and salute. Sadly, however, there are those who pay lip service to critical thinking and then grade their students down when they think for themselves and fail to agree with their teacher. To such teachers, critical thinking is merely a “feel good” concept. 

I am blessed by having studied under good teachers throughout my formal education. The best of them taught me the value of questioning everything, especially those ideas that are most dear to me. I was encouraged to examine a controversial issue from as many sides as possible, evaluate the pertinent information, and then reach a conclusion that was well informed and fair. To me that is what critical thinking is all about. It is the mark and habit of an intelligent person. 

Even more, since about 1965 I have included a major component on logical fallacies when I taught freshman English.. I wanted to introduce my students to those egregious errors in thinking that are so prevalent in advertising, politics, and everyday conversations. Years of constructing speeches and exercises full of logical fallacies gave me an overconfidence. I believed that advertising would have no impact on me. Critical thinking would save me. I would be impervious to the linguistic tricks and the manipulation of imagery that fuel today’s advertising machine. But I was to experience a rude awakening.

I recall vividly the moment when my illusion of superiority was punctured. It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the birds were singing. It was the kind of day that makes me think of the Garden of Eden. I was feeling so good that, apropos of this perfect day, I burst out singing the jingle “Save big money at Menards.” Immediately I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt as if I had betrayed an important code ethic. I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I sing “Zippiti Do Dah,” one of my favorite songs to celebrate special days, instead of the Menards jingle?” Obviously Menards advertising had, like some clever magician, reached into my mind and planted the jingle there to come forth at any moment. 

As a result of that awakening, I began to think about the Menards phenomenon. First of all, even if you prefer Lowe’s (a friend calls it Lowell’s), Home Depot, or some other home improvement store, you have to marvel at the Menards success story. It is one of the most impressive examples of the power of advertising in the Post-Modern world of business. And the campaign began with a dubious choice of a symbol or spokesperson.

To be successful these days, a business has to proclaim its name to the public. It has to be widely known, a household name, as Spiro Agnew used to say. The key factor in this undertaking is to select a symbol or spokesperson to represent the business or program. For example, several years back, Woodsy Owl became the symbol for the anti-pollution campaign. More recently, Flo was chosen to represent Progressive Insurance. Menards took a huge risk in their choice of a spokesperson: He was elderly, thus going against the grain by not using a pulchritudinous young maiden or a handsome young man. Advertising today exploits youth in selling products. Notice that you don’t see an elderly person in any beer commercial. In the Viagra and Cialis commercials, where elderly persons would be appropriate, you never see a single geezer. Check it out if you don’t believe me.

Thus the Menards Man or the Menards Guy, whichever name you prefer, would seem a poor choice to spread the name of a fledgling company to consumers who were eagerly looking for the perfect product and the best deal. And I understand that the Menards Man had no interest in improving his own home. How could he sing the praises of home improvement with such gusto? Despite these disadvantages, the Menards Man succeeded beyond the wildest expectations. He attracted our attention through his unrestrained enthusiasm and his intensity. He could wax eloquently over a bucket of paint, and he could make staining the deck seem like the Kentucky Derby. He was so good I believe he could have sold a used chainsaw to Old Leatherface in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” 

In addition to intensity and enthusiasm, the Menards Man was also loud, and loud is “in” these days. Loud music, loud machines, loud people. There is so much noise that some days I want to go searching for Brigadoon to find peace and, especially, quiet. The Menards Man practically shouted at the top of his voice in his commercials. He seemed like a refugee from Barnum and Bailey’s famous circus. But give him the credit that is due; he called our attention to Menards and made the company well known and prosperous. 

The Menards Man alone does not tell the full story of the genius of the company’s advertising. The other part of that story is the jingle or slogan that Menards uses: “Save big money at Menards.” At first glance, this slogan seems to contradict conventional wisdom. If I wanted to save big money or any money, I would open a savings account in a bank or put my money in a coffee can and bury it in the backyard, which would be about as good as a bank because of the low interest rates. But through a brilliant bit of manipulation, consumers are led to believe that they can save big money by spending it at Menards. It sounds a little like the rhetoric of propaganda coming out of the Viet Nam War: “We had to destroy the village to save it.” The Menards slogan is brilliant. No doubt about it.

Many people do save money by shopping around for the best buy. But the Menards slogan claims that customers can save “big” money seems dubious. If it were true, then surely Lowe’s/Lowell’s and Home Depot would no longer exist because they could not compete with Menards. 

I have friends who are loyal customers of Menards. Recently, the company offered an eleven percent rebate on a purchase, an impressive savings by most standards. I asked them what they did with the money they saved, and they told me that they received no money, that the savings had to be applied to another purchase at Menards. Immediately I thought of Danny DeVito, in “Ruthless People,” when he says, “I want the cash.” I guess you do save big money; you just never see it. It’s mind money. But, in fairness, my friends were pleased with Menards and did not mind being captives of an advertising trick.

Without doubt, my big objection to Menards is that I can’t get rid of that jingle. I have been in Menards stores, and although I haven’t saved big money in any of them, I have found them to be clean and attractive. The personnel have always been courteous and helpful. I just can’t get the jingle out of my mind. The only consolation is that the Menards jingle confirms what John Locke said long ago: that once an idea is in the mind, the mind cannot destroy it. The Menards jingle is useful when I try to explain to students in Western Civ how Locke believed the human mind worked.

I am, however, truly sad about the Menards Man. I miss his wild exhortations about the fun that can be had by using tools from Menards. I never thought I’d miss him but I do. I hope his retirement was his idea and not the result of Menards’ policy to terminate geezers. I came to like him because he was a dynamic role model for elderly people. I hope they gave him a nice pension.

The new Menards Man is just a voice and not a personality. He is, above all, safe, restrained, and respectable. No doubt that is the image that Menards wants to project in this “dog-eat-dog ” Post-Modern world.

Recently I had a dream in which I was looking down at my own grave. The Menards Man was standing by the tombstone with a lopsided, sinister grin from ear to ear, holding a shovel, and pointing to the inscription on the stone: “He still owes Menards.”

Thus my entire experience with the Menards phenomenon comes together in a cautionary tale: Anyone, even the Menards Man, can be marginalized by life. My new mantra is “Don’t lose your intensity.”