Friend’s Don’t Let Friend’s Meme Origin | History of the Slogan

The humorous mem ’friends don’t let friends ’ is based on a very old advertising slogan that has been around for decades: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. This slogan was so successful that it has evolved into countless sayings about what friends don’t let friends do. Friends don’t let friends be sore losers. Anyway, although the actual slogan ’friends don’t let friends drive drunk’ may have been coined earlier, it first entered the national U.S. consciousness through a television ad created by the Ad Council and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), just before New Years’ of 1982. They also ran print ads and billboard advertisements. A similar slogan, developed at the time, was ‘drinking and driving can kill a friendship.’ These slogans coincided with the adoption of the National Minimum Drinking Age bill in the United States. This saying may have become a joke today, but, it was serious business. According to the Advertising Council, an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements, at least 62% of Americans who saw the commercials have stopped someone from driving while drunk at some point in their lives. That’s right. These ads almost certainly saved lives. In 2014, the public service announcement ‘friends don’t let friends drive drunk,’ along with Smokey Bear, was voted by the public as a “Favorite Advertising Icon” and “Favorite Advertising Slogan,” as part of Advertising Week 2014, leading to Smokey Bear being inducted into the Advertising Walk of Fame. Although Smokey Bear is perhaps the most famous and enduring public service character ever created, this drunk driving slogan, and others like it, may deserve much credit for reducing alcohol-related road deaths in the U.S., which dropped from 21,000 a year to 12,500 from 1983 to 1999.