Electrasol is now....Finish!

[~sudsshane]

I was picking up a few things at the supermarket today and noticed Reckitt Benckiser has changed the name of Electrasol Automatic dishwasher detergent to Finish.
My grandmother was a big fan of Finish and I remember that wonderful chlorine clean scent whenever she would run the dishwasher.

What's odd is Electrasol is a very popular and established brand here in the states. I wonder if it makes good business sense for Reckitt to change names.

Has anyone seen this???

 

[~sudsshane]

Finish

pic

View attachment 5-21-2008-17-55-26--~sudsshane.jpg

 

[toggleswitch]

How odd. I liked both of those better than Cascade.

 

[spoodles]

How odd - a US brand changing its name to the UK name.

It's usually the other way round!

 

[oldhouseman]

welcome to

the global economy. What better way to mix things up and get people in more than one country to recognize a market item.

 

[maytagbear]

However,

I distinctly remember Finish brand dishwasher powder from the 70s (when we finally got our first machine.....) It worked, but I preferred Calgonite, and Ma preferred Cascade. (My sister rarely loaded/ran the dishwasher, so she had no opinion then. She's a Cascade/Target gal now.)

The "global branding" theory makes sense, but I am not pleased with it.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[toggleswitch]

Wal-Mart brand DW detergent is FABOO and inexpensive. Thank you GadgetGary for turning me onto it.

 

[gadgetgary]

It was my pleasure

TYVM

For the uninformed, here it is:

 

[peteski50]

Finish!

I remember finish. It used to be called Big Load Finish. It did a real decent job. Why did they stop making it here? I used to like calgonite also! Why did that go away. But I think cascade has always been the top one. I currently use cascade powder now. I never cared for Electrasol because many years ago we tried it in my aunts Frigidaire and the dishes tasted like soap after the fact. I should give it another shot. I wish they would bring back the calgonite!
Peter

 

[supersuds]

Yep, they were running ads on TV today saying Electrasol was now called Finish and it was was the diamond standard for clean, or some such.

Electrasol may not have that high of a name recognition. Recently I was mentioning to a couple of people that my favorite DW detergent was Electrasol gelpacs (the blue ones, love the scent) and they claimed never to have heard of Electrasol. Maybe it sounds too industrial by today's standards.

I still think that most of these brand repositioning things are made up by marketing departments to justify their existence.

 

[mrcleanjeans]

Calgonite was IMHO the BEST detergent EVER!

 

[whitekingd]

Everytime I have used Electrasol, about 25% of my dishes do not come out clean. If I use Cascade, or the Safeway brand, I rarely have a dish that doesn't come out clean. Is it just me?

 

[MrX]

A lot of it comes down to economies of scale in advertising too. If you have several sub-brands to push which are actually the same product with different labels it can be very expensive to produce different ads for every market.

Finish is very well marketed in the UK and I would suspect you'll start seeing the UK/Ireland market ads tweaked for US Television i.e. re-voiced.

It possibly makes more sense for them to have a single branding strategy in all English speaking markets.

 

[aussie-plugs]

Finish doesn't end in the UK ...

We've had Finish here in Australia since mid-70's, when my Mum got her first machine. I think it wss even manufactured here (or in New Zealand? I'm not sure why) at some point. My first machine (1979) was German made and came with a sample pack of Finish. Our supermarket shelves are stocked almost entirely with Finish - you really don't have a choice, despite a different brand ("Morning Fresh", by Cussons, another international manufacturer) doing a far better job of cleaning in my experience.

The picture is lifted from a web site. Although Finish is shown in a bottle, it comes in powders, "Power Ball" tablets, and probably any number of other varieties.

As somebody said earlier, the Global Economy.

 

[gorenje]

Hi to all, here in Slovenia the product is named Calgonit. The funny thing is that you can also buy the Finish from Italy and is obvious that is the same product although the different price.
Sincerely I like different names for the same thing, it's not so boring (like Unilever's OMO, PERSIL, SKIP, WISK)

 

[spoodles]

I noticed on the US Finish website they now have identical TV ads for "the diamond standard" too - the voiceover is by the same English woman too. www.finishdishwashing.com

The site looks identical to the UK site - although the US seems to have far fewer products than we do.
www.finish.co.uk

 

[spoodles]

UK Finish tablets always have "Finish" "Calgonit" and "Neophos" logos on the tablet wrappers - saves them printing 3 different types I guess! I wonder if those other names will become Finish too - maybe Finish doesn't work as a name in other Euro countries.

 

[laundryshark]

Finish Dishwashing Detergent

...As confirmed through the updated Website.--Laundry Shark

http://www.finishdishwashing.com/

 

[laundryshark]

...Same Goes for Jet-Dry®

Also part of the Finish product line. Again, visit the finishdishwashing.com Website.--Laundry Shark

 

[whirlcool]

I remember back when my parents got their first portable dishwasher, around 1962, they used Electrosol detergent in it. So Electrosol is an old brand.
I also remember the Finish here of the 60's & 70's.
You all are right, the Electrosol of today just doesn't really cut it compared with Cascade or WM house brand. I wonder if we'll see a "new and improved" Finish soon?

 

[drewz]

In the New Finish Commercial every other facet of the Diamond is a division of Whirlpool Corporation!

dare to say if Whirlpool is interested in any division of GE appliances? What do you think GE makes better than Whirlpool?

 

[laundromat]

Finish,Electrosol and Calgonite are all the same formula made by the same company.Their original name(the corporation that owned all of them)was Economics laboratories.They were bought out over a decade ago by Reckitt Benckiser.I use nothing else and haven't since 1974 when we got a box of Cascade with our GE Potscrubber and a white film was left on all of our clear glasses and crystal.My mom blamed the dishwasher,I was a dishwasher at a fancy restaurant where we usecd Electrosol and never had a film problem.So,I bought some at Pantry Pride.The box had the brand names of all the diffeent manufactureres of dishwashers that recomended their band.Not only did it make our dishes sparkle but it also got the horible film off.When they introduced the tablets about ten years ago,I tried them and have used them since.GREAT RESULTS EVERYTIME!!!!!

 

[danemodsandy]

Well, That's That...

...I've been an Electrasol user for a long time now, and I never did care for Finish. So what do the "masterminds" (thank you, Norma Desmond!) do? They take away what I like and replace it with what I specifically don't like. This is happening so often nowadays that I no longer "bond" with products- if I like it, they'll drop it, it seems.

I just buy everything that has to be bought new (like cleaning supplies) for price and performance, and to heck with whose name is on the package. The only brand loyalty I have any more is to vintage brands, like I collect and love vintage Farberware products. But new stuff? I couldn't care less, because they'll change the name, or the formula, or the quality, or they'll start making it in China and drop the quality that made me interested in the brand in the first place. Or they'll make it smell like a cut-rate brothel.

It's getting ridiculous, and it's killing the great brand names of this country.

 

[MrX]

They're all the same!!

Reckitt Benckiser make:
Finish
Electrosol
and Calgonite

They are THE SAME PRODUCT

This is just a rebrand, not a reformulation.

 

[lavamat78800]

Calgonite

It isn´t Calgonite, but it is CalgoniT..without an e at the end.
And as far as I know, Calgonit will stay Calgonit here in Germany. At the moment I´m using Calgonit liquid for my dishwasher, it does a good job but on glasses is always a film left...mhh

 

[danemodsandy]

mrx:

</i>"Reckitt Benckiser make:
Finish
Electrosol
and Calgonite

They are THE SAME PRODUCT

This is just a rebrand, not a reformulation."</i>

I don't know what the explanation is here. I have not used Finish in some time, so it may be that the formulations used to be different, and now they are the same. I dunno. What I do know is that I never cared for Finish when I used it.

And my original point sort of remains the same. These companies are no longer run by product people, they're run by marketing people. Brand names mean nothing when the same product bears several different ones. Even if I accept that I'm getting the same product as Electrasol when I buy Finish, my experience tells me that as soon as I begin to form a relationship with the new brand, they'll change the formulation. Or something.

Not gonna do it. This kind of stuff is purchased for price and acceptable performance in this household, and nothing more. I no longer care whose name is on the label, because it's meaningless, or will be made so in short order.

 

[spoodles]

"Electrasol" is such a crap name, (it sounds like a name for a vibrator) you should be glad they're ditching it! ;-)

 

[j2400]

I sort of like the Electrosol name. Finish is sort of...bland. I don't get the vibrator impression, but at least Electrosol is different from the usual "sun shiny clean" sounding name.

But Electrosol might sound a little too old fashioned for marketing. That's the impression I get: a fresh name--decades ago. I like that, being hopelessly out of it. But modern marketing doesn't like that sort of thing. Unless its "staged retro."

As for performance, well, I haven't done any comparison tests for a long time. Problem is, there is reformulation. I think it's always going on--new features added every year to protect glasses, do this, do that. Those who hate Brand X because it was worthless in 1985 aren't necessarily talking about the same product today.

I'm usually heavily motivated by price. I'm curious about the store brands mentioned above. I'm going to suggest to my roommate (who controls the dishwasher detergent buying)