Attention shoppers, have we got a deal for you. Yes, we’re talking about BOGO and I’m part of the team that helped introduce it into modern shopping terminology.

I used to work on Payless ShoeSource and they had a problem. Well, lots of problems. But one in particular was that their Buy One, Get One sale was getting cannibalized (which is a polite way of saying ripped off). Every other shoe maker had started running the exact same sale. Over time, this made both the offer and Payless less special.

At this point, I should mention that I’m a fan of weird internal acronyms, and every category in business seems to have them. For example, in the ice cream biz, they use RHG, which stands for Round Half Gallon. Or how cosmetics companies use GWP for Gift With Purchase. And Payless had their share too.

So, while our clients were discussing the problem with us, they kept using their internal slang, BOGO. And it hit us. Just name the sale BOGO—start using your internal terminology externally. It’ll let us brand it and reclaim it. Our team at Barkley wrote some TV spots and designed a logo for it. Yes, the BOGO became a LOGO. Payless gave the green light and the rest is retail history.

Today, you can’t turn around now without seeing a BOGO sale happening somewhere. There’s a roast beef sandwich BOGO, and a cell phone BOGO. It’s become an integral part of shopping language and behavior. Can an entry in the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary be far behind?

Sadly, as effective as BOGO was, it looks like it wasn’t enough to save Payless, which declared bankruptcy this past week. But it helped them hang on for a good long time.

If you need some creative thinking, big ideas or just a cool acronym, hit me up. I work OSOR (that’s on site or remotely).