BetterMost, Wyoming & Brokeback Mountain Forum
The World Beyond BetterMost => The Culture Tent => Topic started by: Phillip Dampier on June 27, 2007, 02:03:31 am
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And now a message from our sponsor.... This thread will feature a range of television ads that you may remember.
Anyone who watched a NY City television station in the 1970s or 1980s will remember this jingle!
And there is another, for good measure.
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I don't have to say much about this next series of ads from NY City. All you need to know is that he should have changed his name to Fast Eddie because he fled to Israel to escape prosecution. He should have been found extra guilty just for the ads. (The spokesperson in the ad is a paid actor - not the owner)
THE DISCO ERA
CHRISTMAS
THE 80'S ARRIVE, BUT NOT MUCH CHANGES WITH CRAZY EDDIE!
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And now a message from our sponsors.... Anyone in the northeastern United States will remember a certain ice cream parlor with an incomprehensible spokesman who did most of their ads. The day the magic died was when you realized that Fudgey the Whale and Santa were all made from the same ice cream cake mold. And why does the Halloween guy sound like he's from The Sopranos?
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Every once in awhile, a look back at some especially memorable or excellent commercial campaigns. "There's More for Your Life At Sears" was a very well done campaign in the mid-1980s for Sears, with a good jingle. But before we sample that, the Optical Department at Sears has your Diana Prince/Wonder Woman glasses ready to go from this late 1970s commercial!
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Now some of the More for Your Life campaign, starting with the full jingle and some variations.
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No drink (perhaps besides the vile brew knows as Tab) was as derided as the Royal Crown Cola. Considered second rate, RC never made much of an impact in the States, except when it managed to land pouring rights for a time at Arby's restaurants. Otherwise, most people probably would have never heard of RC Cola, except in the ads.
Family Guy joins the teasing....
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Nancy Sinatra shows off all three of her dance moves in this relatively high budget ad (for them anyway). This was probably the high point of RC Cola as far as TV exposure goes. It didn't really help much against the mega-cash of Pepsi and Coke.
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Nancy was the high point. I'm really not sure who thought it would be a great idea to sell people on the idea your cola is less gassy than the competition. Yum.
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I dunno... to me, the woman always looks like a porn star. I'm sure she tried to break a sweat doing that spin in the ad... but maybe the RC, served in some giant ass wine glass of all things, kept her cool.
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One of the first "diet soft drinks" to hit the market was the vile brew Tab Cola. It's actually been around since the 1960s, marketed primarily to women to keep their man interested in them (read that - get fat and he cheats and leaves you). As the concept of equal rights for women made its mark in the 1970s with the women's liberation movement, Tab Cola's campaign was changed to sell its cola to women as part of being one of the "beautiful people."
And for years, Tab was always considered a woman's diet drink. Tab, from the people who make Coca Cola, tried to change that image by appealing to men in a few ads, but frankly this never worked.
What made Tab awful was really more the fault of the sweetener - sodium saccharine. Before there was Nutra Sweet, there was this stuff. It had the pesky problem of being a "delayed sweetener." When it first hits your tongue, it tastes bitter. But after a few moments, the sweetness kicks in, and then stays... and stays... and stays more. Hence, you get the aftertaste problem.
A good soft drink should not be a palate challenge, and Tab generally was, except for those who just drank so much of it, they got used to it. And that presented the second problem - in the 1970s sodium saccharine was tied to causing cancer in rats. The warning label went on the cans.
Nutra Sweet (aspartame) came along in a big way in the 1980s and killed off Tab, which disappeared off most store shelves, despite the fact it has been in regular production ever since it was created. (Believe it or not, aspartame was first sold as a sweetener for gum and kids cereal before it settled into its primary role as being a diet beverage sweetener.)
Tab has made a small reappearance on some store shelves, and is trying to reinvent itself as a diet energy drink targeted to young men. Considering the dominance of Red Bull, I'm not sure how far they'll get.
So let's review the ads from the folks who made Tab, starting with the horrendously sexist ads from the 1960s. You won't believe this stuff.
BE A MINDSTICKER.
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One was not enough... the stalker look of the guy makes me think Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
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The creepiness continues... the announcer to me says "Hello, Dave" - Hal the computer
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And before there was sodium saccharine, Tab was sold without ANY sweetener. Yum...
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The 1970s are here... I know. Let's make a musical for Tab!
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The most memorable Tab ads started in the late 1970s and kept the same jingle for a good part of the early 1980s until Tab lost so much weight on store shelves, it disappeared. You can thank the Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi wars in the mid-80s for that... and NutraSweet!
But at least the jingle for Tab is good, even when the drink isn't.
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Let's spend the whole ad looking at Miss Bikini... from 1982
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Tab wasn't just sold in North America. It was foisted on Australia as well, with a different "sing" of the jingle by some Australian jingle singers.
"Every can has less than two calories." Those Australians were pigs... they couldn't handle the one calorie American version I guess. :)
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Oooh, the days of Tab were really numbered by the time this stupid ad came out. Coca Cola figured they needed to do something different, so they took the caramel coloring out (making the cola clear) and marketed it as Tab Clear with a completely ridiculous ad. Nobody cared.
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Tab also was sold across much of Asia. Here is how they tried to market their clear version to Japanese youth....
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Since most "energy drinks" taste awful , why not reinvent Tab, which has that nasty taste built-in anyway, as an "energy drink" and sell it to college students who have no idea what the history of Tab is. Sorry, New Now Generation, Tab has a sordid past as you can see, and it's not ultra-cool to be carrying the Drink of the Mindstickers around campus.
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Eww. Mom and Dad used to drink Tab all the time when I was a kid. It tasted terrible; very bitter and disgusting. I don't know how my parents kept it down. :P
They also drank Vernor's diet ginger ale. That was another rank tasting drink. :P
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I wonder why they didn't pay a couple of dollars more to get a decent ad campaign. Those are possibly the worst commercials in the world...And no
matter how you dress it,, it still tastes horrid...As do all diet drinks in my opinion..When I gave up Coke and Pepsi..I just started on water or lemonade..
I would rather have water than that vile stuff.
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Yeah, I've had unsweetened cola before. It's called club soda.
What cracks me up in the ad is the "now" taste of Tab. I think I'd rather have the "before" -- even the after -- taste.
Tab is one of those things that starts off with an aftertaste. :P
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I have only one thing left to say....."If it ain't broke. Don't fix it." Leave
Pepsi and Coke alone, Dr Pepper for those who like it, and Root beer. Sprite, which i can't stand, but for those that do like it...fine. But new is certainly not always improved...remember the new Coke..............??? nuf said
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Yes, that's right... for a holiday treat your guests will never forget (and potentially never forgive), there's Dr. Pepper... heated!
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Dr. Pepper is one of those "other" soft drinks (birch beer, grape, RC, Mountain Dew, Squirt, etc.) that spent part of their commercial budget just explaining what the heck the drink was. I think Mountain Dew may have had it the hardest if you were outside of West Virginia - the epicenter of Mountain Dew. Dr. Pepper is most popular in the state of Texas (by far). It was so popular with President Johnson, he had a soda fountain installed in the White House that served nothing else.
When you boil it all down (to play off the first ad in the series), Dr. Pepper is basically a spiced up cherry cola. It's "zing and zow" comes from the stronger syrup used and extra carbonation, not caffeine (which is still there, but not any higher than Coke or Pepsi).
Dr. Pepper narrowcast its ads mostly to teenagers, perhaps even more so than Coca Cola. They aimed for the same demographic Pepsi does.
First, back to the "Now Crowd" with some ad spots from the 1960s. Were your kids dressed in a suit and tie to drink soda?
And as usual with ads from the 1960s, only white people drank Dr. Pepper.... If it isn't sexism that drives me bonkers, it's the fact ads stayed lily white in this country until the 1970s.
In the Style of Ray Conniff....
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More overdressed teens... more wood panelling... more water sports....
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While the Watergate burglars were getting caught, the rest of America was listening to their mouth with this song and dance routine. It's the first soda act that brings integration to the soda wars. They are still trying to explain what the heck Dr. Pepper is as we hit 1972....
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...and anyone else in Texas. Did you know that most theater in northern Texas serve Dr. Pepper? Here's the concessions trailer they showed in most Texas theaters in the 1970s to promote Dr. Pepper, although I don't know how many misty mountains are in Texas.
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It's the mid-1970s and they're still trying to convince people to try a soft drink that some people think is black pepper soda. By the way, 23 flavors? Really?
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Yup, the 1970s role on and they are still explaining what a Dr. Pepper is to Americans. This is getting to be ridiculous - just like RC and their "less gassy" tagline. That is Carol Kane by the way, and now we have the bad guy forcing our leading lady to down the Pepper. And the jingle now screams "so misunderstood." What is to misunderstand... it's a strong cherry cola with more bite. Sheez.
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Did anyone ever confuse a Dr. Pepper with root beer? This one is turned into a Broadway-style performance. By now, if you haven't tried the damn thing, I doubt you ever will....
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Finally by 1978 they figured out it's better to just drink it, sell it, celebrate it, and stop explaining it. This was the ad that everyone remembers when it comes to Dr. Pepper. It was by far their best and sales shot up after running it.
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The 80s arrived and now it was time to start selling to Generation X. Unfortunately, my generation didn't trust any commercial, and this series of four spots flopped. For a lot of us, the way too pretty boy looks, the dancing, and the conventionality made these ads uncool. Most of my friends were discovering Cherry Coke instead. Pepsi had the Pepsi Generation and Pepper created ads that look like they recruited people from the Young Republicans League. Gee golly gosh... no.
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From the early 1990s, here's Dr. Pepper losing market share and playing it way too safe... big yawn.
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Well, it's a little better, but the 1990s were not a good decade for Dr. Pepper being creative.
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Now we're getting somewhere. Here's a clever play on Baywatch by Diet Dr. Pepper.
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This was never made it to air on a lot of American stations - way too risque, but it was among the most clever ads they ever did, and people sure did remember this....
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Sometimes the stars of the past need to make a mortgage payment like everyone else, and for no apparent reason pop up in advertisements....
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Back to the "safe" ads. Not too much to see here, except now they're trying to convince people to drink the diet version of Dr. Pepper. At least they stopped explaining what Dr. Pepper is.
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Just like with the Reagan years, here we have more advertisers not taking -any- chances whatsoever. This ad leaves me cold. They think they're clever, but not so much. Live a little.
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Nope... we're looking for something a tad edgier and with more zap. I'm not buying it. (And I didn't either - can Dr. Pepper handle "berries and cream" on top of the 20+ other flavors?)
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Yeah, their advertising agencies dropped the pepper, so now to serve the YouTube generation, Dr. Pepper asked those drinking it to help create new ads for the soft drink. Amazingly, a lot of these turned out to be more authentic and made more of a connection than the mediocre million dollar ad agencies were able to come up with. Here's one especially for Texas:
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And here is an especially clever one that has gotten popular: