Ajax (cleaning product)

For other uses, see Ajax (disambiguation).
Ajax

Ajax logo
Launch year 1947
Company Colgate-Palmolive
(US and Canadian detergents rights owned by Phoenix Brands)
Availability Yes

Ajax is a brand of cleaning products, introduced by Colgate-Palmolive in 1947 for a powdered household and industrial cleaner. It was one of the company's first major brands.[1] The cleanser ingredients include sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, sodium carbonate, and quartz.[2]

The Ajax name was transferred to a line of household cleaning products and detergents; the line enjoyed its greatest success in the 1960s and early 70s. Ajax All-Purpose Cleaner with Ammonia, introduced in 1962, was the first major competitor to Procter and Gamble's Mr. Clean (debuted 1958). Ajax' success as the so-called "White Tornado" forced Procter and Gamble to introduce its own ammoniated cleaner, Top Job, in 1963.

Other Ajax products included Ajax Bucket of Powder, an ammoniated power floor cleaner (1943); a short-lived spray cleaner (1960); Ajax Laundry Detergent (1964); and Ajax Window Cleaner with Hex ammonia (1965). The last successful Ajax line extension in North America, Ajax for Dishes, debuted in 1971; now known as Ajax Dishwashing Liquid, it and the flagship powdered cleanser are the only two Ajax products sold to consumers by Colgate in the US. The brand name continues on a line of industrial detergents, cleaners and disinfectants.[3] Colgate-Palmolive Company sold US and Canadian rights to the Ajax brand name on laundry detergents, as well as to other laundry products as Fab and Cold Power, to Phoenix Brands in 2005.

Ajax Laundry Detergent was available in a liquid formula, with or without bleach, beginning in the mid-1980s.

Three Ajax Spray n' Wipe products (an all-purpose cleaner, a bathroom cleaner, and a window cleaner), well known in Australia and New Zealand, are among market leaders.[4]

Advertising

Ajax Bleach container from Mexico; "Bicloro" means "Double Bleach"

The original Ajax powder slogan was "Stronger than dirt!", a reference to the muscular hero Ajax of Greek mythology. Some Ajax dish soaps now feature the trademarked slogan "Stronger than grease!" which may be a pun on "Greece.".[5] Another early slogan was "Ajax... the foaming cleanser!"

The first slogan was used again for Ajax Laundry Detergent when introduced in the early 1960s, advertised with an armed knight riding a white horse. At the end of the Doors song "Touch Me", Jim Morrison says the slogan "Stronger Than Dirt". A widely mocked commercial in the late 1970s and early 1980s declared, "Armed... with AJAX!"

US actor Eugene Roche gained household fame as AJAX man, "Squeaky Clean", in many 1970s television commercials.[6]

In the UK, character actress Ann Lancaster appeared on television advertisements featuring the slogan, "It cleans like a white tornado". Colgate ceased UK advertising for the brand in 1996.[7]

In Australia, Ajax Spray n' Wipe television commercials appeared around 1988 to 2010, all with the same music, based on Ian Dury's song "Billericay Dickie". The ads featured soap opera actress Paula Duncan and the same family members.[8]

Featured in Carrie Underwood's song, "Dirty Laundry"

See also

References

  1. ↑ The History of Soaps and Detergents, About.com
  2. ↑ Product Name: Ajax Scouring Cleanser. Household Products Database. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  3. ↑ Ajax products page at Colgate Commercial
  4. ↑ Home care in New Zealand, Euromonitor report, July 2010. "Ranked second was Colgate-Palmolive holding 20% value share, with its leading surface care brand Ajax." Retrieved 2011-04-27
  5. ↑ "AJAX® - Dish liquid". Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  6. ↑ Myrna Oliver (2004-08-02). "Obituaries; Eugene Roche, 75; Character Actor in Films, Television". Los Angeles Times.
  7. ↑ Axe looms over AJAX as Colgate ditches support, Marketing Week, 19 Jan 1996. Retrieved 2011-04-27
  8. ↑ "Ajax jingle to return with Paula Duncan reprising character of frantic housewife". Mumbrella. Retrieved 17 December 2015.

External links

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