This morning I heard an article on public radio (probably on Public Radio International’s* Marketplace*) about orphan brands, which have been sold off by their original owners in favour of more important brands in their conglomerate. Several well-known brands were mentioned as being orphaned. But for the life of me, I couldn’t bring to mind which “principal” brand of the original owner was the cause of the orphaning. So, I was wondering if anyone could help out. Which brands were reponsible for the orphaning of these once prominent brands?
Chloraseptic throat spray and lozenges
Ajax soap
Fab detergent
Dynamo detergent
Comet cleanser
Spic and Span mopping liquid
Duncan Hines baking mixes
Lender’s bagels
Celeste frozen pizzas
Swanson frozen foods
Vlasic pickles and peppers
Open Pit barbecue sauce
Mentadent toothpaste: Pepsodent toothpaste, Aim toothpaste, and Close Up toothpaste
Sunlight dish detergent
Final Touch fabric softener
Niagra spray starch
Rit fabric dye
Murphy’s Oil Soop
All of these brands still exist, so far as I know, but they were abandoned by their original owners in favour of some brand that the companies regarded as more important. Most of them have been sold off, many of them to a company, Premier Brands, that just collects unwanted brand names and license their use so that the products still exist.
What I’m curious about are the brands that the original owners decided were more important, because in many of these cases, such as with Comet and Chloraseptic and Rit and Murphy’s and Spic and Span – these orphaned brands are the most well-known for their product ranges.
You probably did. He didn’t say they are no longer made, he said the originally owners of the brand flogged them to somebody else. In fact, the OP has seemingly included the entire brand portfolio of “Prestige Brands, International” - Chloraseptic, Comet, Clear Eyes, Murine and Prell. Not surprising, since their business plan is to take over and market well known brands cast off by other companies. Prestige itself seems to be owned by a private investment firm.
You would probably have to research each case individually, if you couldn’t find out where the PRI piece got its data, and it could be time consuming. Prestige got Murine and Clear Eyes from Abbott Laboratories, for instance, and Comet from Proctor and Gamble. I AM somewhat dubious that all of those brands were discarded by their original owners - Offhand, I don’t believe Abbott has a competing product to Clear Eyes and Murine, for instance. It would sound more plausible that they simply wanted to get out of the eyewash business.
I meant to say “were discarded by their original owners because of competing brands they also owned”. I don’t doubt that they were discarded for SOME reason.
A lot of brands are orphaned because the owner wants to get out of the business entirely, not because there’s another brand by the same owner.
Two of the most famous I can recall off the top of my head – Singer no longer makes sewing machines and Trailways Bus Company is actually owned by Greyhound.
Pan Am, Midway, Braniff and Frontier were all airline names that were revived after the original airlines with those names went out of business.
International Harvester changed its name to Navistar and focused entirely on building trucks. The International Harvester line of tractors and farm equipment is now owned by Case, a former rival.
Ralston Purina was founded as an animal feed manufacturer, then branched into cereals. It sold off both the animal feed and cereal businesses. For awhile it concentrated on pet foods and Eveready/Engergizer batteries. Then what was left of the original company got bought out by Nestle.
FWIW P&G has a strategy to devote it’s energy to potential “Billion Dollar brands”, like Pringles, Charmin, Bounty, Tide, Clairol, Cover Girl, etc. Duncan Hines doesn’t have potential to be a “global brand” because many parts of the world don’t bake/don’t have ovens (think Asia).
In the collector car arena, an orphan car is one that was made by a company that is out of business and the cars are no longer produced at all. (e.g. Hudson, Studebaker, Nash and kaiser)
At least one “orphaned” P&G brand, Oxydol, was bought by former employees and is now run at a profit. They don’t have the big ad budgets that P&G did, but they also don’t have the big P&G overhead, so they can make less than what P&G did and still be successful.