Omo detergent in the USA

[supersuds]

This might be interesting to half a dozen people on this forum, anyway.

 

Omo is a brand name used by Unilever for its top-of-the line detergent in many markets (Australia, Brazil, South Africa, parts of Europe.) Apparently they took a shot at marketing it in America in the late Sixties and someone had a couple of unopened sample boxes for sale on Ebay last week. They sold in a flash (not to me).

 

The front:

 

 

 

 

[supersuds]

I'm guessing its from the late Sixties because it has no statement of phosphate content, but contains the standard language of the time about using more detergent rather than a packaged water softener (i.e., Calgon).

 

[supersuds]

It seems to have nothing special: It isn't concentrated (1 and 1/4 cups was a standard starting dose for most brands at the time) or low sudsing, and makes no claims about enzymes or bleach. Why would the average person buy it? Who knows? This was a period when a lot of new brands were being introduced, such as Gain, Bold, Drive, and Punch. Maybe Lever was just throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck.

 

Anyway, it does have a pretty complete laundry guide on the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[supersuds]

Just to complete the series...I don't suppose anybody remembers seeing this in the flesh?

 

 

 

[angus]

Never saw that one here before. It could have been something that was test marketed in certain areas of the US but didn't do well so never made it to the rest of the country. That was the case for a lot of laundry products that we in the New York metro area never saw or heard of. Some that I recall were P&G's Stardust powdered bleach and Ariel detergent powder, Colgate's Cold Power in liquid form as well as Quik-Solv detergent tablets, Clorox's Wave all fabric bleach and Wave detergent as well as Clorox detergent. Or it may just have been a regional brand.

Also, the fact that this OMO product didn't have enzymes isn't that surprising for a Lever Brothers offering. It may have been offered before the initial late 60's enzyme craze. However, when P&G and Colgate jumped on the enzyme bandwagon and it was a rare exception to have a detergent that did NOT contain enzymes (P&G's Cheer/ Duz/Dreft/Salvo/Bonus and Colgate's AD/Super Suds), the only enzyme detergent Lever offered was Drive. None of their other offerings (All/Rinso/Rinso Blue/Breeze/Silver Dust/Wisk/Cold Water All contained enzymes.

 

[jamiel]

Apparently P&G's Stardust was test marketed in Detroit---I came up with a sample package out of an estate sale.

There is a fascinating compilation of old advertising at Duke University---hundreds of TV ads including both test marketed items (frequently with a voice over "available in XXX city and surrounding areas" as well as the different ad ideas for new products which passed test marketing (do we emphasize the blue color for Dawn dish detergent, or the grease handling; and how to do that (no film on dishes, cleaner sink bottom/sides, etc etc ad infinitum).

 

[launderess]

Lever Bros

Did their best but never managed more than a small portion of US laundry product market share. P&G's Tide was then (and still is now) market leader. This did not stop Procter and Gamble from casting a weary eye at what Lever Bros. was up to not just in USA but Europe and elsewhere as well.

In a delicious bit of schadenfreude P&G went after Lever Bros. to prevent latter from introducing their new manganese based bleaching system into UK and European markets. P&G had fears the product would do well and thus embolden Lever Bros. to look elsewhere for other markets such as North America/USA.

They wouldn't be told and Lever Bros. did introduce "Persil Power" (UK) and "OMO Power" (Netherlands some other areas in Europe). The detergents quickly became top seller besting P&G's Ariel.





On the continent Henkel in Germany was also taking an interest in what the other owner of Persil brand name was up to. Their own tests concluded what P&G had already said, that the manganese based product would among other things harm textiles. Lever Bros. basking in their glory basically told Henkel same as P&G "sod off...".

It all ended in tears however when what others said would happen, well did.... Housewives across UK began noticing their wash was being eaten alive by Persil Power and or the OMO variant.

Forced to fact facts Lever Bros withdrew Persil Power and came out with "New Persil". It took some doing but people have short memories and soon Lever Bros. was forgiven and scandal over Persil Power largely forgotten. New Persil again over took P&G's Ariel as top selling laundry detergent in UK, something that has remained pretty constant ever since.

https://adage.com/article/news/lever-boldly-expands-power-detergent-recipe/91104

https://adage.com/article/news/unil...gent-giant-tacitly-admits-defeat-persil/83961

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/unilever-powers-into-soap-battle-1374594.html

For record it wasn't just P&G and Henkel ganging up on Lever Bros. UK consumer testing groups researched Persil Power and came up with same conclusions; the stuff rotted textiles.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news...ustry-in-a-spin-it-all-comes-out-in-the-wash/

Lever Bros. patent for bleach manganese catalyst:

https://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP0544519.html

Lever Bros. dug in their heels for long as they could on Persil Power. At first they simply modified formula (nothing to do with complaints about rotting of wash from consumers....), but in end it was clear.

https://www.gettyimages.ie/detail/v...terview-sot-rebalanced-news-footage/812773772

Keep in mind far as North America was concerned P&G had patented NOBS oxygen bleach activator (which gave us Tide With Bleach but also was used in Oxydol and Biz), thus locking down bleach activator market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodiu...is the main bleach,soluble than TAED in water.

Any other laundry detergent sold in USA that wanted an activated bleaching system would either have to pay P&G for use of NOBS or find something else. This was one of P&G's fears with Lever Bros. and their new oxygen bleaching activation system.

In Europe TAED long dominated activated oxygen market, but when patents expired they were not renewed, thus nearly every laundry detergent or whatever product sold in UK/Europe that has an activated oxygen bleaching system was (and is) free to base it up on TAED. P&G OTOH until rather recently kept tweaking their NOBS system so were able to renew patents. Unless am mistaken P&G has dropped activated bleaching system from Tide with Bleach and just uses sodium percarbonate straight.

 

[launderess]

Bringing this back on home.....

Lever Bros. already had plants in USA for making powdered detergents (Wisk, All and Surf). Would have been easy to simply send formula to one of these plants for OMO and crank out a limited run amount. Boxes could have been printed up wherever Lever Bros. did OMO containers with just few changes for USA (address of Lever Bros offices, dosage, etc...).

OMO sold in UK/Europe at this time would have been for front loaders which dominated markets. Thus any laundry detergent sold for or in USA market then would have had to be a "high dilution" formula capable of giving results in twenty or so gallons of wash water (top loader) versus about half or so in a H-axis washer.

There would also be issues with formulating a detergent suited to local water conditions. P&G at least then long had tested Tide detergents (and one assumes other offerings) in regional areas to determine best usage in local water conditions. Water in New York say was and or is different than say Texas...

Given water in much of UK is far harder than much of what is found across USA Lever Bros probably just picked one area to test market this OMO offering. Then suited product to that local water condition.

Score card:

OMO is Persil in UK. Skip in France, Portugal and Spain and OMO in Australia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, South Africa, Norway, Brazil, Turkey and Chile.

Henkel also owns rights to brand name Persil. Unilever (formerly Lever Bros,) owns rights to Persil brand name in following markets: Malaysia, Singapore, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and New Zealand. In said markets OMO is Unilever's premium detergent based upon OMO formulas. Contrary to what many assume Persil Henkel and Unilever are totally separate products sharing nil in terms of formula or anything else other than name. In many markets Unilever uses other names than "Persil" for various reasons. For instance in French "Persil" translates into parsley.

 

[novum]

Internally Unilever seem to refer to their top of the line detergent as OMO. It’s an old British brand that originally stood for Old Mother Owl and featured an owl on the packaging in about 1900s

It remained on the market in the U.K. and Ireland until sometime in the 1980s, when Lever Bros decided to focus on Persil and Surf, and for a while they also has Radion and Wisk.
I think they just decided they’d far too many detergent brands.

The current “splodge” brand detergents work a bit like the Unilever heart brand ice creams. They’re a universal symbol with the same products, yet retain local brands like Persil and Skip.

OMO’s branding in the UK and here in Ireland was very much “no nonsense”







The term “Automatic” was the equivalent of “HE” in the U.S. decades later as washing machines here went from non automatic top loaders to automatic front loaders. Very few top loaders here automatic, they existed but they were not common. So the front loader became absolutely synonymous with automatic.

Persil Automatic was Lever’s post 1960s top of the line product here and OMO got consigned to an odd tier and withered and died.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Somewhere I have a barely used box of OMO Matic from Australia brought here in the late 80s or early 90s, by combo52.

 

[brisnat81]

In Australia there was OMO for top loaders, wringers and twin tubs. With OMOmatic for front loaders. All the way up until the 2010s you could get OMOmatic and Drivematic, before they moved to it being OMO or Drive with the Toploader or Frontloader branding.

 

[launderess]

OMO TAD was more likely OMO with "TAED", that is an activated oxygen bleaching system.

Unilever's Skip detergent was first to use TAED in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraacetylethylenediamine

As stated previously Skip was Lever Bros. top detergent in France and some other markets, while OMO was for UK and so forth. Thus OMO got "TAD" for UK market...

It was Unilever scientists who discovered TAED (at Port Sunlight of all places) back in 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever_Research_&_Development_Port_Sunlight_Laboratory#1970s

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0509787A2

 

[launderess]

Unilever finally threw in the towel and ditched their North American laundry brands selling off Wisk, Snuggle, All and Surf back in 2008.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25884712

Elsewhere depending upon where one lives Persil, Skip, Surf Excel, Rinso and Breeze are still going as Unilever's top laundry detergent offering.

https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2023/whats-in-half-a-billion-homes-on-the-planet/

It may come as a surprise to Americans but Unilever has world's largest sales of laundry detergents (by household penetration) and their brands rank third in terms of public awareness.

https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2023/whats-in-half-a-billion-homes-on-the-planet/

This likely has much to do with fact Lever Bros via "Sunlight" soap then Persil got a huge head start in UK and other markets. P&G have done their best both by introducing Tide to UK and European markets (long since withdrawn), then of course there is Ariel.

 

[launderess]

Throughout HM's realms Persil is just something generations of British, Aussies and others have grown up with, know, love and trust.

From soap based powder:











To detergent formulas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovque2gxsEo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjy97k1RgM4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dHXt4S4qPM

Lever Bros. (now Unilever) simply found ways to tug at housewives and others heart strings in ways that she or whoever feared being branded a slovenly housekeeper if they didn't use Persil or whatever TOL product Unilever was flogging. Message was clear, to protect one's reputation along with all one held near and dear, one used Persil.

OMO faded into background in UK to point Unilever's own market research pointed out that 80% British consumers when asked to name a laundry detergent responded with "Persil". Elsewhere in world OMO (such as Brazil) OMO comes out on top.

https://www.unilever.com/news/news-...brand-dig-clean-clothes-and-a-cleaner-planet/

Basically Unilever and P&G have been at each other for UK laundry market domination for ages now. Each tries to out do the other, sometimes one wins, then tides turn.

P&G beat Unilever to UK market with liquid detergent (Ariel). But Unilever/Lever Bros was first with tablets to UK/European market.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/357186.stm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8XAY_lJrvY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVbGs2vdBSA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnHVbEy4_Mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KasP2vRJX0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfXEESPpPY8

 

[launderess]

Point of all this palaver is....

Notice as decades wore on past 1960's OMO seemed to become more and more regulated to second place behind Persil in UK. All OMO apparently had going for it in UK was "whiteness" (thanks to heavy dosage of OBAs most likely).

Meanwhile as Lever Bros/Unilever did battle with P&G it was increasingly then mainly to Persil they turned, at least in UK.



Now for something truly interesting... By early 1990's Sainsbury shook things up by launching their own private label washing powder gaining a healthy nearly 10% of UK market. Today of course private label brands from likes of Lidl or Aldi frequently come out on top of consumer group ratings and are popular with consumers. But for early 1990's this was ground breaking news, especially to P&G and Unilever/Lever Bros.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...an-impact-in-washing-powder-wars-1395319.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...an-impact-in-washing-powder-wars-1395319.html

 

[angus]

I wonder if the "Novon" brand from Sainsbury's is the same Novon house brand that was sold at Shaw's supermarkets (and also "Star" markets in Massachusetts) in New England states back in the late 90's. Shaw's was around in upper New England states for a long time but didn't enter the Connecticut market until the mid 1990's when they took over many former Grand Union locations. Never a major player, they never did much to the outdated, dirty stores they took over. Consequently, they didn't capture much of the market share, easily overshadowed by Stop & Shop and Big Y, with ShopRite nipping at their heels along the way. And by 2005, they were gone from the Connecticut scene. As for the detergent itself, I recall it was only on the shelves here for a few years then disappeared..... Never got a chance to try it though.

 

[jamiel]

I wonder, though...how in the 60s did they get Persil (soap-based) to work in the hard hard water of the UK? Was it perborate/phosphate/soap or was it boiling washes or what?

 

[launderess]

Chief ingredients in Persil washing powder besides soap were sodium PERborate and sodium SILicate (get it? "PerSil..".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persil#History

Sodium metasilicate along with some other silicates are rather good water conditioners. As with all soap based products one simply used enough product to maintain a rich layer of suds. Since Persil contained water softeners one dosed according to soil levels and water hardness.

Then yes, of course there was all that hot or boiling water for washing and or first one or two rinses.

Right up until and through 1970's hospitals and others doing healthcare laundry in UK used nothing but soap and sodium metasilicate for doing things fouled by blood and other fluids or secretions. Results were quite good to excellent. Then again they were also washing at temps at or near 95 degrees C.

Getting around hard water and using soap for wash day....

In Germany and some other markets Henkel devised the wash day trinity: Henko (a washing soda based pre-soak), Persil (washing powder) and Sil (a perborate based rinse agent that went in first hot/boil rinse).

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-h...s-and-washing-powder-imi-persil-33592937.html

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-a...for-soaking-the-laundry-henkel-110626938.html



Bringing this back on home....

After P&G launched Tide detergent in 1940's nearly every soap based wash day product was threatened. This included until then Lever Bros "Rinso". They did their best to reverse declining sales of brand including introducing "blue" Rinso which was a detergent, but nothing really helped.

In 1952 Lever Bros. launched "Surf" (in UK market) and Sunil in Netherlands, Germany and other markets which was a detergent.

Because it was a detergent Sunil/Surf like Tide and others did away with issues caused by hard water on wash day.

In this German advert the mother who has not heard nor used Sunil learns its benefits from another housewife who knows what she's talking about. First housewife asks about "soaking" and boil rinsing (referring to Henkel's wash day trinity), with other housewife telling her none of that was necessary. Just into kochewashe tub, bring to boil, etc....

In this other commercial for Sunil a housewife is schooled by her laundress in virtues of Sunil...





Lever Bros. got jump on Henkel by introducing Sunil/Surf in 1952. Henkel wouldn't bring out a detergent version of Persil until 1959 (Persil 59...)

Notice packaging for German "Sunil" wasn't that much different than OMO sold in UK and elsewhere.

https://www.alamy.com/advertising-h...arance-info-not-available-image241333228.html

Back to hard water and soap on wash day..

While Lever Bros was content to introduce detergents such as Sunil, their top selling wash day product in UK, Persil, would remain soap based well into 1960's and beyond. Lever Bros over years tinkered with formulas for Persil doing things such as adding phosphates, using different types/formulas of soaps, creating versions for hard and soft water, adding washer protection agents including ingredients to prevent limescale on heater elements, etc... All this culminated with introduction of "new improved" Persil in 1968 which was still a soap based product.

Persil History Thread - Info/pictures/videos appreciated!

Hi, as the title says, I am creating this thread about the history of Persil, the detergent brand, as I would like to know more about Persil and also about the history of the brand. I hope this thread also educates others as well. So please can you share anything you know about Persil and I...

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[angus]

Not to digress, but Shaw's and its own 1999 acquisition, Star Market (mostly Boston area) were owned by Sainsbury's until 2004 when they were purchased by Albertson's. So that would explain why Novon detergent was available in the early days of Shaw's in Connecticut.