"Enzyme-active AXION...it's da BEST!" (Arthur
I don't recall which came first, but I think Axion and Biz came out within a few weeks of each other in 1967 or 1968. The story of Axion is particularly interesting since Arthur Godfrey never endorsed anything that he personally didn't believe in. When he drank Lipton Tea on his old TV show, for example, you knew he had a kitchenful of Lipton tea bags.
The "ol' redhead," however, was also one of the first public celebrities to speak out for ecology. When he discovered that Axion contained phosphates (as did all laundry products back then), he quite the TV commercials instantly. I recall seeing an article on the environment that he wrote in Reader's Digest shortly afterward:
"You may notice I don't advertise a certain laundry product any more. It's still a good detergent, but it contains phosphates. And I cannot endorse a product that does so much damage to the environment..." (paraphased quote from article.)
Even more ironic that at one point, Eddie Albert--who himself was an ecological supporter--advertised Biz!