By Mennen

This post started with a jingle. While thinking, searching for something to write about it just popped into my head...

"By Mennen"

It's funny how that little jingle/tag was so prevelant in my childhood, and is so engrained in my mind, is no nowhere to be found in modern advertising that I've seen.

This has to do with brand architecture and how certain brands get phased out as their popularity wanes. But it's hard to think that something as catchy as "By Mennen" could go out of favour. I could see maybe it's use being scaled back, but to be eliminated entirely?

There are still some products in North America however, that are still marketed as being "by Mennen" but I haven't ever seen them.

This jingle was so popular that I remember George on Seinfeld referencing it when talking about how he gets into women's heads after a while - annoying at first, but then you can't get it out of your head. "Co-stan-za"

Now, Mennen used to be the company responsible for Speed Stick - but was eventually purchased by Colgate-Plamolive. The interesting thing was, that even though Speed Stick and others were brought into the Colgate-Plamolive brand architecture, they still retained the branding of "by Mennen" and were effectively marketed as such for a period of time. It's an interesting example of how brand architecture changes over time as names and campaigns fall out of favour with the public.

I found this to be a somewhat different case than most products that get rebranded due to public perception, mostly due to the fact that the company whose product was bought and was brought into the brand family, retained it's original owners name - and even had an effective jingle - but eventually fell by the way side.

I could say that I'll miss the jingle, but then again - I don't think I'd want it any fresher in my mind than it is now.

By Mennen


brand architecture, colgate-palmolive, speed stick was part of brand, mennen being dropped in some areas, nostalgia, jingle, seinfeld