By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
If you were around in Buffalo in the 1960s, you can’t help but remember the “Boost Buffalo” jingle.
The Boost Buffalo campaign started hitting Buffalo radios, TVs, and with 10,000 bumper stickers in 1960, organized by the marketing men of Buffalo.
The decline of many of Buffalo’s major industries had already begun—but in 1960, Chamber of Commerce President Whitworth Ferguson told one luncheon that Buffalo was the ninth fastest growing city in the country, and it was important to Boost Buffalo because “with an enlarged spirit of cooperation, we can obtain for our citizens an even greater level of prosperity and well-being.”
Buffalo’s Chamber of Commerce seemed to blame the massive hemorrhaging of industry from Western New York on the bad attitude of Buffalonians.
Henry Comstock of Comstock Advertising which created the Boost Buffalo campaign and jingle.
“Buffalo’s record on almost every score is far above the average,” said Comstock, “yet our people seem prone to find fault and seem to delight in picking on small insignificant short comings.”
At the unveiling of the campaign, UB Chancellor Dr. Clifford C. Furnas declared that “the negative attitudes about the city expressed by many are entirely unjustified,” and added that “perhaps we have been resting on our laurels.”
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If you grew up in Buffalo in the 1960s, you can’t help but remember the “Boost Buffalo” jingle. But that was the idea behind the slogan, as it was explained in 1964 when the special Chamber of Commerce “Boost Buffalo” committee elected new leadership.
” ‘Boost Buffalo’ leader is named”
“ ‘Some people poke fun at the “Boost Buffalo, it’s good for you” slogan,’ a chamber official said, ‘but that only shows that it’s caught on, that everybody’s heard of it, and that it’s good.’ ”
