OAKVILLE, ONT – Christine Magee, co-founder and president of Sleep Country Canada, has admitted she no longer agrees with the implied answer to her company’s jingle.
“Since the beginning Sleep Country Canada’s only goal has been to help Canadians get the best sleep for the best price,” Magee told reporters at a press conference. “By incessantly playing our jaunty jingle for decades, we didn’t mean to imply we’re the best, much less the only, place to buy a mattress. That would violate the unspoken code of Canadian niceness.”
Controversy over the chipper seven-second tune which concludes all Sleep Country commercials arose in the late 1990s as media analysts protested the jingle’s implied message that no reasonable person would purchase a mattress “anywhere else.”
“The tune negates the lyrics’ question,” said Dr. Nadia Svoboda, professor of musical communications at Concordia. “A major key implies certainty. If Sleep Country was genuinely curious about people’s reasons for buying a mattress anywhere else, they’d have ended the song with a diminished fifth, which brings up feelings of uncertainty and even angst.”
“Then again, the single lyric begins with ‘Why.’” Svoboda continues. “That makes it a question, no matter which chords animate its treacly melody, so now we’re in the territory of inherent contradictions.”
“But then there’s that final punctuating ‘ding!’ , which clearly means ‘case closed, so there,’ like it’s being said by a pixie who just patted you on the head with her sparkly star-wand.”
Hoping to restore their reputation, Sleep Country has aired a number of adverts testing several jingle-alternates including “Why buy a mattress period, (ding!)” “Why buy anything, (ding!)” and finally: “Why?” with the final vowel extending as a plaintive cry into the depths of the uncaring universe, before being followed by a happy little (ding!).
Although Magee’s statement has lessened the public’s furor over truth in advertising, a recent viral Tweet has generated heated discussion over whether everyone does in fact love Marineland.
