BLUE BONNET, HAMM’S BEER, QUISP; Just to name a few.
At one time you couldn’t turn the television on without catching a commercial for one of them. The airwaves for years were swarming with ads for such products. Today they are not advertised at all. This wouldn’t confuse me except for one thing: These products still exist! They’re sold everywhere nation wide! I’ve personally seen them in stores from Wisconsin to Maine, from Arizona to Florida, and everywhere in between.
Why does a corporation go from advertising the living snot out of their product, and then completely cut it out, yet still continue to manufacture said product? How do they expect to sell without any advertising whatsoever, especially when the item was advertised like crazy at one time? After the ads stop, don’t sales drop off eventually? Is there some kind of matrix with the data comparing the cost of ads with the extra sales the ads produce, or are there other reasons this kind of thing happens?
It’s different for each brand. Looking up Blue Bonnet magarine, I see it’s manufactured by Unilever. Other Unilever magarine brands are Fleischmann’s, Imperial, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. The latter is obviously where they concentrate their advertising.
Often, with older brands, a company will concentrate on newer products, figuring that sales for the old brands are going to be about the same no matter what they do. There’s no reason to promote an older product as long as the sales remain steady, and it’s unlikely for a product to benefit from an ad campaign unless you can say something new about it, or you feel it’s time to introduce it to a new generation of consumers.
It also may have to do with patterns of how margarine are bought; if people tend to buy on price, it’s hard to promote an item with a high price, and you don’t need to promote an item with a low price.
I had thought about it like that. But look at old products that everyone knows about that are still advertised like crazy. There must be some basic formula companies use to determine advetising budgets per product.
There are tons of products that did this, but beer is an excellent example. PBR, Old Style, Hamms, Schlitz. Back in the 70’s and 80’s there was an ad for one of them every other commercial break. Today, not a one. But the products still exist.
When it was advertised SCHLITZ was one of the biggest sellers on the planet.
So, did sales slump because beer drinkers tastes changed, or because advertising was cut?
The Schlitz brewing company ceased to exist when they were acquired by Stroh’s in the '90s, and subsequently sold to Pabst, who own the rights to the name today. Some beer is still brewed with the Schlitz name on it, but it really bears no relation to the Schlitz of yore; it is just one label among many owned by Pabst.
I expect in most of these cases the answer has to do with corporate mergers and buy-outs. The original manufacturer of a product probably advertised all over the place, but when the company was acquired by UltraMegaCorp that advertising became less of a priority
My choice for the all-time greatest beer ad is the one Cream recorded for Falstaff back in the psychedelic '60s. They play this great proto-metal riff that sounds like “Sunshine of Your Love” played inside-out, while Jack Bruce wails in his most over-the-top voice about "Faaaaaalstaff: the thirst slaker!"
They’re only listing 6 retailers in the entire US…not exactly what I’d consider “sold everywhere nation wide”[ol][li]Wisconsin - Woodman’s[/li][li]Milwaukee, WI - Kohl’s[/li][li]Chicago, IL - Cub[/li][li]Boston, MA - Star Market[/li][li]Denver, CO - Albertson’s[/li][li]Buffalo, NY - Tops[/ol][/li]I’ll nominate Tab; which is still sold nationwide (and consumed by addicts around the world). Coca-Cola stopped marketing it shortly after Diet Coke was released and treats the brand like a red-headed stepchild.
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They’re only listing 6 retailers in the entire US…not exactly what I’d consider “sold everywhere nation wide”
Wisconsin - Woodman’s
Milwaukee, WI - Kohl’s
Chicago, IL - Cub Boston, MA - Star Market
Denver, CO - Albertson’s
Buffalo, NY - Tops
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Yeah, but note that one of them is Star Market in Boston, where I live (and I shop at Star). That’s why I’m surprised to note that I haven’t seen it.
The answer is probably simple return on investment (ROI).
A national ad campaign is incredibly expensive, probably in the nature of tens of millions of dollars. That’s the investment. What’s the return?
How many extra percentage points of the market will this campaign provide? How much profit is involved in each extra percentage point? How much of these extra sales will come from cannibalizing the sales of your other brands? How much do you have to pay supermarkets in shelving fees to stock the additional amount of this product they will need to carry? How much do you have to put into couponing and other promotions?
And what will happen to the sales as soon as you stop all this expensive advertising?
Existing brands are cash cows. They make money without needing much of anything in the way of investment. If you want to do a national advertising campaign you better have an equally incredibly good reason to match the incredible expense or your head will roll.
I’ve seen Quisp in Phoenix, Minneapolis, & Sarasota, just to name a few. Also, it’s being sold here [Milwaukee] at Pick & Save and Jewel, neither affiliated with Kohls. So that info is wrong. The Tab example is a really good one though.
My theory is that every generation has its beer. They’re gonna stay with that beer. Geezer beers are gaining popularity for some reason. But the geezers remain loyal while the young kids drink Coronas and Heinekens. Ads will stop for them eventually, too.
Forgot to say I think the geezer beers are cheap and that’s why they’re gaining popularity… I never liked beer much, but Hamms and all those smell terrible to me!
I think RealityChuck has the answer. A company with a flagship product gets bought by a competitor. The new company recognizes that the old brand still has value, but they prefer to advertise THEIR flagship product, figuring that the other brand will just cannibalize sales from their flagship brand. It costs them next to nothing to print two different boxes and put the exact same product into both.
There are in fact, companies that buy up old brand names and just keep selling them, usually as off-price competitors. Purina Dog Chow, for example, is now owned by Nestle. They also own the higher-margin Pro Plan and Alpo brands, and that’s where they put their investment.
As for Quisp, take a look at Quaker’s other brands. They don’t do much advertising, period.
Remember Bon Ami™ and its slogan “Hasn’t scratched yet” ?
Haven’t seen that advertised in a long while.
Maybe it got an unsolicited testimonial from the running joke in “The Ghost and Mr Chicken”
In an old mansion where a murder was committed, blood was splattered everywhere … even on the organ keys. And it was still there … even to this day … “And they used Bon Ami”.
With publicity like that - who needs to advertise?