# Products that are no longer advertised on TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176 "2012-03-29T17:07:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Floppy\_Joe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3bc359/32.png) [@Floppy\_Joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floppy_Joe)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/21 "2012-03-29T21:19:35Z")
Used to see the “Irish Spring” soap ads all the time. Now, not at all. Still buy it, though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/22 "2012-03-29T21:42:16Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > You don’t see the laxative commercials like you used to, nor the hilariously vague ones for feminine hygiene products. Nature’s Secret: when you need that fungal infection in your vagina kept under control. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Kapowzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Super\_Kapowzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Kapowzler)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2012, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/23 "2012-03-29T23:34:25Z")
Holy shit you fuckers are OLD! King Vitamin. The Fucking Honeycomb Hideout, where they smoked pot and stashed old Playboys and a pack of Tareingtons, 'cuz the fuckers would rather FIGHT THAN SWITCH! Marathon Bars last a Looong Time. Oh, and bye the way, you’re soaking in it. WHO THE FUCK SOAKS THEIR FUCKING HANDS IN DISHWAHING DETERGENT? Like I said, I’m 18 and shit. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/24 "2012-03-30T02:25:11Z")
“Promise her anything, but give her Arpege” “I can’t seem to forget you…Your 'Wind Song stays on my mind” (by Prince Macciabelli) //Hai-Karate, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/25 "2012-03-30T02:48:38Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Right, I’m talking about products they simply _seem_ to have stopped advertising. Many years ago, I was talking to a woman who was in college working on a marketing degree, and she mentioned that there are a lot of the big, “standard” companies that have been around forever that don’t advertise much because they don’t need to - everybody who needs to know about them already knows about them. Then she said you can tell when one of these companies starts having trouble, because they’ll suddenly start advertising like crazy. At that time, Hewlett-Packard was the company that was doing that. Products like these are often known as “cash cows.” > [@](#): > > (Economics) a product, acquisition, etc., that produces a steady flow of cash, esp one with a well-known brand name commanding a high market share Though companies love them because they underwrite the expenditures for new products, they often aren’t rewarded by investors, who only want to hear about future growth. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/26 "2012-03-30T03:55:25Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > .Older-than-me Dopers, I’m I guessing correctly? Were these products indeed “new” in the early '70s? And what was up with the dishsoap ads? I know Palmolive has been around forever. Was there an explosion of competing dishsoap brands in the 1970s? I’m probably older than you, and I was eating Oscar Mayer bologna sandwiches in my lunch at school in the early 60s, if I remember correctly, so it wasn’t new in the 70s. Neither was liquid dish washing soap. I agree with other posters; those ads were aimed at women, anda greater percentage of women were home during the day in the 70s than in the 90s. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/27 "2012-03-30T06:27:00Z")
Ginsu Knives. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/28 "2012-03-30T12:29:42Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > Has Mr. Whipple moved to the retirement home? Haven’t seen him in ages. > [@Doug\_K](#): > > Sadly, [Mr. Whipple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Whipple) passed away in 2007. Sadly, from a rare side effect of Geritol… ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/29 "2012-03-30T13:03:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Products like these are often known as “cash cows.” Like Maytag and their washers. I have one. I turned it into a cash cow. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/30 "2012-03-30T13:06:46Z")
Anybody who thinks they don’t advertise laxatives and Geritol and assorted other equipment for being old clearly hasn’t watched _Wheel of Fortune_ lately. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/31 "2012-03-30T13:26:26Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I’m not sure that I can ever recall TV ads for movie theaters; at any rate, I suspect that theater chain advertising has largely moved online. When I was a kid, living in a smaller city and back when theatre chains had less of a monopoly on movie theatres, I used to see TV commercials (and/or hear radio ads) that would say things like “Now playing at Duffy’s Twin Cinemas – Meatballs and The Muppet Movie!” ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/32 "2012-03-30T14:22:55Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > You still see feminine hygiene ads, they’re just a little less vague today. And they keep getting less and less vague as time goes on. It’s only a matter of time until “See how fast it soaks up this blue liquid?” turns into “See how fast it soaks up this red liquid?” eeeeewww! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/33 "2012-03-30T14:24:59Z")
And then following it will be the ad for Buttfuckers. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/34 "2012-03-30T15:26:08Z")
It’s been a while since I’ve seen an Afro-Sheen commercial. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/35 "2012-03-30T15:32:08Z")
Okay, I’ll consider my ignorance fought here. It would appear that, rather than “no longer advertising” these products, it’s simply a matter of “no longer beating _everybody_ over the head” with these products. Though looking back at my earlier posts, I think I should have been more clear that I originally noticed this “trend” in the 1990s; I’m not talking so much about _current_ TV ads. In the '90s I still saw plenty of ads on the “big three/four” networks that were clearly targeted at the same demographic as the 1970s bologna/hot dog/tuna ads. It just that they were advertising _different_ products, i.e. “new” things. As **kenobi 65** mentioned, the ads might be for the same _company_, but for a different specific product (the _new_ product). In the case of tuna, as a more recent example, instead of advertising how great the actual _tuna_ is (like the '70s ads did), the ads were really about the new packaging options (bags instead of cans). ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/36 "2012-03-30T15:59:52Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > In the '90s I still saw plenty of ads on the “big three/four” networks that were clearly targeted at the same demographic as the 1970s bologna/hot dog/tuna ads. It just that they were advertising _different_ products, i.e. “new” things. As **kenobi 65** mentioned, the ads might be for the same _company_, but for a different specific product (the _new_ product). In the case of tuna, as a more recent example, instead of advertising how great the actual _tuna_ is (like the '70s ads did), the ads were really about the new packaging options (bags instead of cans). Exactly so. It’s the product of what’s happened in the past 25-30 years in packaged-goods marketing. It’s become horribly expensive to launch a completely new brand, and the fight for shelf space in the grocery store is brutal. What you now see (and saw in the 1990s, for that matter) is existing brands release a continual stream of “line extensions” (new flavors, or new sub-lines of an existing brand). Completely new brands of a significant size in established categories have become quite rare. 30 or 40 years ago, if Nabisco wanted to come out with a new line of cracker-like snack chips, they probably would have brought out a new brand. They do so today, and it becomes a sub-line of the Ritz brand. They count on recognition of the “mother brand” to both drive consumer acceptance of the new item, as well as retailer willingness to take on the new item. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/37 "2012-03-30T16:55:53Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > 30 or 40 years ago, if Nabisco wanted to come out with a new line of cracker-like snack chips, they probably would have brought out a new brand. They do so today, and it becomes a sub-line of the Ritz brand. They count on recognition of the “mother brand” to both drive consumer acceptance of the new item, as well as retailer willingness to take on the new item. Heh. Doritos and Mountain Dew. A while back I was standing in front of the Doritos at my supermarket, and commented to the 20-something employee nearby on how “going to the store for Doritos” used to be such a simple thing. She had no idea what I was talking about. I’m betting one of the big things is that 40 years ago, there were a lot more “regional” brands, and that made it easier to introduce a genuinely new product. It looks like, maybe, the 1970s were when a lot of those regional brands started going national? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/38 "2012-03-30T17:07:26Z")
> [@bizzwire](#): > > Hai-Karate, anyone? Oh, dear ghods. I am a martial artist and I used to get a quart of that stuff every birthday/Christmas. Deepwoods OFF smelled better. I don’t know how many bottles of it I threw away. And I would ask to not get it, and I would always get it until they quit making it. Man, that stuff was nasty. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/39 "2012-03-30T17:13:55Z")
I can’t recall the last time I saw a [VD](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtOLLLbekec) public announcement. I find it strange that of the zillions of different beers available, only a handful are advertised on television. Busch and Michelob used to be advertised like crazy. Now nada. When was the last time you saw an ad for Crisco or Wesson, or any other shortening/cooking oil? Oil companies used to be major advertisers. Mobile, Amoco/Standard, Shell, Phillips 66, Texaco. Now you might see an ad for Speed Way or Kwik Trip, but they’re touting the store part of their business, not so much the power/quality of their gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176/40 "2012-03-30T18:23:41Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > It looks like, maybe, the 1970s were when a lot of those regional brands started going national? Or, in some cases, they were bought by big national / global companies. Mountain Dew, which you mentioned, was originally a little regional brand in the Southeast; Pepsi bought it in 1968. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/products-that-are-no-longer-advertised-on-tv/617176.md?page=3)