They Sofa King Took Our Idea, But I’m Sofa King Cool With That

Last Updated on: 3rd March 2015, 03:05 pm

Back sometime around 1994 or so, a buddy and I got an idea. We should open a furniture store and call it Sofa King. Just think of the advertising possibilities, we thought. Our prices are Sofa King low…the selection and service are Sofa King Great…you get my drift.

Like a lot of our ideas, we filed it away and brought it out now and then to make people laugh, but we never did get around to opening that store.

I don’t know if somebody was listening to us or came up with this on his own I mean let’s face it, this isn’t exactly high concept comedic genius here, but it was still kind of awesome to read this today, even though a merry band of killjoys had to go and ruin it for everyone.

For about a decade, there has been a real life Sofa King ruling Britain. This monarch, as instructed by the blueprints so lovingly and carefully laid out by my friend and I years before, spread the message that his prices were, in fact, “Sofa King Low.” It was shouted from the rooftops in the form of vehicles, newspaper ads and probably more.

Then…people complained. People always complain. “Something is fun,” they say. “We must put a stop to it.” And so it was, with the help of the Advertising Standards Authority.

”The ASA noted that the phrase ‘Sofa King Low’ used the advertiser’s company name but considered that it could be interpreted as a derivative of the swear word ‘f***’, which consumer research had found to be a word so likely to offend that it should not be used in ads at all, even when it was relevant to the name of a product,” the watchdog said.

”Because of that, we concluded that the slogan was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.”

I haven’t had a chance to share this news with my pal yet, but when I do, I’m certain we will both agree that the ASA and its ruling are Sofa King lame.

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