8 Cheap Ways to Shut the Kids Up When You’re Driving | Mobil 1960s

Like all 1960 advertisements from DDB advertising agency (VW, Avis, etc.) this attention grabbing illustration matched with the all-lowercase, blunt headline creates powerful intrigue. (They chose the opposite of a safe, expected, and unremarkable headline like ‘8 Inexpensive to keep the kids quiet…’)

And the conversational body copy is a joy to read:

8 cheap ways to shut the kids up when you’re driving.

Driving with kids can drive you out of your mind.

Worse than that, it can drive you into a ditch or a tree or head-on into another car.

The trick is to do something about it before you leave. Later may be too late. Here are 8 possibilities:

1. Before you start out on a trip, go to the dime store and buy some soft toys, coloring books, magic slates, games or puzzles. Wrap them individually and give them out along the way.

2. Make the oldest kid the Navigator. Go over the map with him, mark the route, and let him watch for road signs, towns, rivers and other places of interest. (This is an especially brilliant idea if you’re no great genius at it yourself.)

3. Have the kids keep a Scrap Book of the trip. When you stop, let them collect postcards, match covers, menus and other souvenirs. When they get back in the car, they can paste them in the Scrap Book.

4. Play a game called Count Bumps. The kids cover their eyes and count the bumps the car goes over. (Make a rule that they have to count to themselves, not out loud.)

5. When they get tired of counting bumps, get them to count something else. Anything else. Red cars. Blue cars. Police cars. Stars. Women drivers. Anything. Anything.

6. Take along a Junk Box. It can be a shoe box full of spools, string, a magnifying glass, pipe cleaners, any old thing. The kids will make up their own games to play with the junk.

7. Make a bed in the back for naps. You can do this easily by putting suitcases on the floor to level with the seat. (Whatever you do, don’t forget favorite blankets and pillows.)

8. Suggest a game of Keep Quiet. Whoever keeps quiet longest wins.

While you’re experimenting, we at Mobil are here to sell you gasoline and oil. And we intend to be in business for a long time. We’d like our kids to sell gasoline and oil to your kids.