Bon Ami

Advertisement featuring the "hasn't scratched yet" slogan, 1907

Bon Ami (French for "Good Friend") is an American scouring powder brand sold by the Bon Ami Company of Kansas City, Missouri. Since its inception in the late 19th century, the brand's advertising campaigns have gained particular notice.

History

Advertisement in American Cookery, 1919

19th century

The original Bon Ami formula was developed in 1886 by the J. T. Robertson Soap Company as a gentler alternative to quartz-based scouring powders available in stores.[1][2] In those days, scouring powder was made from tallow and finely ground quartz. When quartz was mined, it was entwined with feldspar, and the two had to be separated by hand.[3] The feldspar was discarded until Robertson discovered that this soft mineral could be combined with soap to create a less-abrasive product that would clean without scratching, resulting in the Bon Ami product.[4]

Bon Ami was originally manufactured in a factory in Glastonbury, Connecticut, which later moved to Manchester in the 1880s.[5]

As of 1896, Bon Ami was a common product in northeastern United States households.[4] The slogan "hasn't scratched yet!" is an early American trademark.[6][7][8]

20th century

In the early 1900s, Alfred William Erickson, founder of McCann, revived the brand with full-color pages in leading women's magazines. He accepted Bon Ami as a client c. 1908.[9] Artist Ben Austrian painted the prints,[2][3] and Ben's wife served as the model in the ads. The campaign blossomed into literature with the release of The Chick That Never Grew Up, a work of children's literature featuring Princess Bon Ami.[2]

In 1963, Lestoil purchased an approximately 60% stake in Bon Ami.[10] Bon Ami merged into Lestoil in 1964, after protracted negotiations.[11]

In 1971, Bon Ami was purchased by the Faultless Starch Company,[12] which later changed the corporation name to Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company to help reintroduce Bon Ami to the market.

In 1980, the company again revived its brand with a magazine campaign featuring the headline "never underestimate the cleaning power of a 94-year-old chick with a French name".[8] During the first 6 months of the campaign, Bon Ami sales rose 12%.[13] Nevertheless, its business was still flagging by 1983, when it remained in third place behind products from Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive.[12]

21st century

In 2011, Bon Ami celebrated its 125th anniversary by rereleasing the original cleaning cake for purchase. Limited supplies were offered both with and without a commemorative tin, celebrating the original formula's popularity.[14]

Ingredients

The product called "original" contains only feldspar.[15] For other products, the Bon Ami website lists the following as main ingredients: feldspar, limestone, water, baking soda, citric acid, corn alcohol, epsom salts, essential oils, and xanthan gum.[16]

In popular culture

Bon Ami advertisement, 1890

In the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel Tender Is the Night, first published in 1934, Fitzgerald notes the routine of the character Dick Diver in cleaning up his workroom at his home outside Cannes: "He swept up, for no servants were allowed in there, treated his washroom sketchily with Bon Ami, repaired a screen and sent off an order to a publishing house in Zurich".[17]

In the 1966 film The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, whenever discussing a murder at an old mansion, one character mentions that the police were unable to clean the blood off the organ keys, and another character adds, "And they used Bon Ami!" Lead actor Don Knotts personally got permission from the president of Bon Ami to include this reference to the company's product.[18]

In the first volume of his autobiography, Isaac Asimov recalls a box his family kept in the bathroom when he was a child, and how in his childish naïveté he was impressed that the company was so conscientious that if they ever found that the powder had scratched, they would change the slogan to "Only Scratched Once!"[19]

Jane Vandenburgh's novel Failure to Zigzag makes reference to Bon Ami's slogan "hasn't scratched yet".[20]

References

1. Hubbard, Robert (2012). Glastonbury. Arcadia Publishing. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-7385-7679-4. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
2. Cross, Mary (2002). "Bon Ami Scouring Powder". A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0313314810. OCLC 1029270577. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
3. Dorman 1994, p. 66.
4. Woodward 2003, p. 143.
5. Rhinelander, David (August 27, 1999). "Scratching the Surface of Bon Ami's Beginnings". Hartford Courant. p. B1. ISSN 1047-4153. ProQuest 256268856.
6. Barach, Arnold B. (1971). "Bon Ami Chicks". Famous American Trademarks. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press. pp. 23–24. OCLC 1034671046.
7. Nesbit, Wilbur Dick (1922). First Principles of Advertising. Gregg Publishing Company. pp. 104–105.
8. Percy, Pam (2002). The Complete Chicken. Stillwater, Minnesota: Voyageur Press. p. 118. ISBN 9780785827542. OCLC 1148597385.
9. Hirschhorn, Bernard (1997). Democracy Reformed: Richard Spencer Childs and His Fight for Better Government. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-313-30144-5. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
10. "Lestoil Buys Control of Bon Ami for Cash". The Wall Street Journal. August 27, 1963. p. 6. ISSN 0099-9660. ProQuest 132807938.
11. "Lestoil and Bon Ami Reach Accord With Merger Foes". The New York Times. June 27, 1964. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
12. "Bon Ami Now Scratches for Soap Market Share". The New York Times. March 21, 1983. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
13. Ferrell, O. C; Pride, William M. (1982). Fundamentals of Marketing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 340. OCLC 1035151757.
14. "Bon Ami 125th Anniversary Cleaning Cake Kit". Archived from the original on December 8, 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
15. "Bon Ami® 1886 Original Formula SDS Number: 04030" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on December 23, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
16. "The Bon Ami Story". Bon Ami. Archived from the original on June 15, 2020. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
17. Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1997) [1934]. Tender Is the Night. Penguin Popular Classics. London: Penguin. p. 207. ISBN 978-0-14062-359-8.
18. Knotts, Don; Metz, Robert (1999). Barney Fife, and Other Characters I Have Known. New York: Berkley Boulevard Books. pp. 180–182. ISBN 9780783888224. OCLC 1028652483.
19. Asimov, Isaac (1979). In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-13679-2. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
20. Vandenburgh, Jane (May 3, 2000). Failure to Zigzag. Counterpoint. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-58243-895-5. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved September 19, 2020.

Sources

• Dorman, Evelyn S. (1994). "Bon Ami". In Jorgensen, Janice (ed.). Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands. Vol. 2. St. James Press. pp. 66–68. ISBN 9781558623378. OCLC 756196954.
• Woodward, A. (2003). "Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company". In Grant, Tina (ed.). International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 55. St. James Press. pp. 142–145. ISBN 9781558626966. OCLC 769044999.

External links

• Official website