Ipana was a
toothpaste
Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from the teeth, a ...
product manufactured by
Bristol-Myers Company. The
wintergreen
Wintergreen is a group of aromatic plants. The term "wintergreen" once commonly referred to plants that remain green (continue photosynthesis) throughout the winter. The term "evergreen" is now more commonly used for this characteristic.
Mos ...
flavored toothpaste (0.243%
sodium fluoride
Sodium fluoride (NaF) is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is used in trace amounts in the fluoridation of drinking water, in toothpaste, in metallurgy, and as a flux. It is a colorless or white solid that is readily soluble in water. I ...
was its active ingredient) reached its peak market penetration during the 1950s in North America. Marketing of Ipana used a
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
-created mascot named Bucky Beaver in the 1950s.
Introduction and early popularity
Ipana was introduced in 1901 by the Bristol-Myers Company of New York. Ipana was an early and large sponsor on United States radio broadcasts starting in 1923 with the program ''
The Ipana Troubadors
''The Ipana Troubadors'' (aka ''The Ipana Troubadours'') was a musical variety radio program which began in New York on WEAF in 1923. In actuality, the Troubadors were the Sam Lanin Orchestra. They opened the show with their theme, "Smiles."
The ...
''. A series of popular records was issued under that name by
Columbia from 1925 through 1931.
Sam Lanin
Samuel Charles Lanin (September 4, 1891 – May 5, 1977) was an American jazz bandleader.
Lanin's brothers, Howard and Lester, were also bandleaders, and all of them had sustained careers in music. Lanin was one of ten children born to Benjamin ...
was the leader and contractor of the studio group. From 1934 to 1940, the brand sponsored ''
The Fred Allen Show
''The Fred Allen Show'' is a long-running American radio comedy program starring comedian Fred Allen and his wife Portland Hoffa. Over the course of the program's 17-year run, it was sponsored by Linit Bath Soaps, Hellmann's, Ipana, Sal Hepatica ...
'', which ran under the names ''The Hour of Smiles'' and ''Town Hall Tonight''. After Allen switched sponsors, Ipana sponsored ''It's Time to Smile'', with
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, ...
and
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during ...
.
With hexachlorophene
In 1959, Bristol-Myers added
hexachlorophene
Hexachlorophene, also known as Nabac, is an organochlorine compound that was once widely used as a disinfectant. The compound occurs as a white odorless solid, although commercial samples can be off-white and possess a slightly phenolic odor. It ...
to Ipana toothpaste. Television ads at that time proudly proclaimed that this ingredient made Ipana superior to competitive toothpaste brands in germ-killing power. It was not known at that time that hexachlorophene was dangerous, and so, the ingredient was later removed.
Magazine promotions
In the 1950s, Bristol-Myers saturated women's periodicals with a broad-based monthly ad placement campaign for Ipana. Magazines such as ''
Better Homes and Gardens,'' ''
True Stories,'' and ''
McCall's
''McCall's'' was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-for ...
'' were targeted to cover the broad range of women's interests; however, the campaign all but ignored men's magazines, and this weakened the brand by leaving perceptions that Ipana was a product for women and children.
Brand decline and withdrawal
Sales of Ipana declined throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, due to:
# increased marketing efforts from Bristol-Myers' competitors
Procter & Gamble
The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...
,
Colgate, and others,
# the increase in the popularity of color television, in whose programming Bristol-Myers was uninterested in investing, and
# the company's recognition that manufacturing pharmaceuticals was more lucrative than buying television ads to sell personal hygiene products
Bristol-Myers withdrew many of its basic care products, including Ipana, from the market. By 1979, Ipana had been discontinued entirely in the United States, but it was still being sold elsewhere in the world.
Ipana was never submitted to the
American Dental Association
The American Dental Association (ADA) is an American professional association established in 1859 which has more than 161,000 members. Based in the American Dental Association Building in the Near North Side of Chicago, the ADA is the world's ...
's Council on Dental Therapeutics for possible acceptance by the ADA as an effective decay-fighting dentifrice.
Revitalizations
In 1986, a gel version of Ipana containing two fluorides was introduced in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. At present, the Ipana brand is a leading toothpaste in Turkey.
In 2005, River West Brands, a Chicago-based brand revitalization company, re-introduced Ipana into the U.S. marketplace.
River West Brands divested itself of Ipana by selling the brand and related
IP to Maxill of Canada in October 2009. Maxill, one of the top three selling toothbrush makers in Canada, brought Ipana back to life in early 2011 as a "retro brand" in the professional dental market, where Maxill had come to dominate the professional oral hygiene category. Maxill extended the Ipana name to other dental products such as
prophy angles, topical anesthetic and bamboo toothbrushes. According to the label, its active ingredient is
sodium monofluorophosphate
Sodium monofluorophosphate, commonly abbreviated SMFP, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Na2PO3F. Typical for a salt, MFP is odourless, colourless, and water-soluble. This salt is an ingredient in some toothpastes.Klaus Schrödter ...
(0.76% w/w).
Television ads
Bucky Beaver (voiced by
Jimmie Dodd
James Wesley Dodd (March 28, 1910 – November 10, 1964) was an American actor, singer and songwriter best known as the master of ceremonies for the popular 1950s Walt Disney television series ''The Mickey Mouse Club,'' as well as the write ...
) was the
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
icon and
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
of Ipana commercials from the 1950s. Bucky Beaver's slogan was "Brusha, brusha, brusha. Get the New Ipana—it's dandy for your teeth!"
Mr. Decay Germ, stylized as D.K. Germ, was the villain in the Ipana toothpaste commercials. In the commercials, Bucky Beaver told him, "Mr. Decay Germ, stay away from me. I'm sick and tired of cavities. Go bother someone else now."
Comic strip ads
Stan Drake
Stanley Albert Drake (November 9, 1921 – March 10, 1997) was an American cartoonist best known as the founding artist of the comic strip ''The Heart of Juliet Jones''.
Born in Brooklyn, Drake worked in the back of a Dugan's Donut truck for a do ...
, artist of the newspaper comic strip ''
The Heart of Juliet Jones
''The Heart of Juliet Jones'' is an American comic strip series created by Elliott Caplin and drawn by Stan Drake, beginning on March 9, 1953.Brian Walker, "The Times Are A'Changin'", in Dean Mullaney, Bruce Canwell and Brian Walker, ''King of th ...
'', started his career as illustrator for the comic strip ad agency
Johnstone and Cushing. In an interview with
Shel Dorf
Sheldon "Shel" Dorf (July 5, 1933 – November 3, 2009) was an American comic book enthusiast and the founder of San Diego Comic-Con International.Spurgeon, Tom.Shel Dorf, 1933-2009, ''The Comics Reporter'' (self-published), 4 November 2009. Acce ...
for the
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
he said he learned drawing pretty girls on the Ipana ads he did for them.
In popular culture
Under the name Frances Westcott,
Frances Bergen
Frances Bergen (née Westerman; September 14, 1922 – October 2, 2006) was an American actress and fashion model. She was the wife of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the mother of actress Candice Bergen and film and television editor Kris ...
, wife of ventriloquist
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters Ch ...
and mother of actress
Candice Bergen
Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for her portrayal of the title character on the CBS sitcom ''Murphy Brown'' (1988–1998, 2018). She is also know ...
, worked for the Powers Modelling Agency, and her face appeared as "the Ipana Girl" in toothpaste ads in magazines.
Before becoming a counterculture
beat poet
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
worked on the "Brusha, brusha, brusha" campaign as a market researcher.
[ Watson, Steven, "The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944-1960," Pantheon Books, 1995, p.119.] The jingle is referenced in a scene in the
1978 film version of the musical
''Grease'' (which built upon a passing line mentioning Bucky Beaver in the
original stage musical), and subsequently appeared in a live televised version, for which the production acquired the performance rights.
[ ]
The toothpaste is mentioned in the 1999 movie
''Blast from the Past''. A family mistakenly lives underground in a fully stocked private nuclear bomb shelter after a jet plane crash during the Cuban missile crisis. Decades later when they emerge, their supply of discontinued toothpaste is evidence that they really did live underground for so many years.
See also
*
List of toothpaste brands
Toothpaste is a gel dentifrice used in conjunction with a toothbrush to help clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene; it functions as an abrasive agent that helps to remove dental plaque ...
*
Index of oral health and dental articles
Dental pertains to the teeth, including dentistry. Topics related to the dentistry, the human mouth and teeth include:
__NOTOC__
A
:Abfraction •
Abrasion •
:Academy of General Dentistry •
:Acinic ...
*
List of defunct consumer brands
This is a list of defunct consumer brands which are no longer made and usually no longer mass-marketed to consumers. Brands in this list may still be made, but are only made in modest quantities and/or limited runs as a nostalgic or retro style it ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
* LeBrun, Fred. (January 14, 1987)
Times Union ''Name that Beaver.'' Section: Local; Page B1.
* Hartill, Lane. (January 14, 1999)
K. Smith of Malden, Mass. Asks, Whatever happened to Ipana Toothpaste?' Section: The Home Forum. Page 23.
*Cadenhead, Rogers. (March 31, 1999)
New Jersey Record
''The Record'' (also called ''The North Jersey Record'', ''The Bergen Record'', ''The Sunday Record'' (Sunday edition) and formerly ''The Bergen Evening Record'') is a newspaper in New Jersey, United States. Serving Bergen, Essex, Hudson and P ...
''In search of Ipana toothpaste.'' Section: Your time; Page 5.
* Wallace, David. (August 6, 2004)
Delta Farm Press. ''Industrious beavers have friends and detractors.'' Volume 61; Issue 32; Page 16.
* Stein, Betty E. (February 14, 2005)
The News-Sentinel
''The News-Sentinel'' was a daily newspaper based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The afternoon ''News-Sentinel'' was politically independent. The papers suspended publication in November 2020, after the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.
Early history
'' ...
''Uncovering the fates of never-forgotten brands.'' Section: A; Page A8
*http://www.old-time.com/commercials/1930%27s/Smile.html co-marketing of Ipana and
Sal Hepatica
Sal Hepatica is the name of a mineral salt laxative that was produced and marketed by Bristol-Myers from its inception in 1887, becoming its first nationally recognized product in 1903, until 1958. When dissolved in water, it was said to reproduce ...
in the 1930s
Brands of toothpaste
Defunct consumer brands
Products introduced in 1901