See other o.b. ads: French (ooo.ooo.b., 1989) - German (early 1950s) - German (1970s) - German nude (1970s) - French (1989) - German ("Egyptian," 1970s)

What does o.b. mean?

A British Tampax ad using nudity (1992) - And see other ads directed at teenagers.

See a Modess True or False? ad in The American Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
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o.b. (obé) menstrual tampons, highly absorbent, Switzerland, 1970

Witty cover design! Germans, at least, pronounce ob as oh-bay and I suspect the French do, too. And obé would sound the same unless it came out oh-bay A (long American A). I know that Germans find Swiss German hard to understand, so maybe a different pronunciation is involved. OK, so maybe it's more of a visual play. And the é, of course, stands for économique, French for economical.

Much later, an ad agency - French? - tricked up o.b., making the two letters, tiny like the tampon, expand to a large number to show the number of women who used o.b. Witty!

By the end of the decade highly absorbent tampons would be big news because of toxic shock (more here about Rely tampon).

What does o.b. mean?

Tambrands, former maker of Tampax tampons (now part of Procter & Gamble), kindly donated the box as part of a large gift from its archives.

 
Above: Someone at Tampax annotated the label. The French reads "economy box." The box measures 5" x 2.0625" x 4.25" (12.6 x 5.2 x 2.6 cm).
 
Above: The German reads the same as the French, top picture, but the price is still in franc (Fr.) - but not the French, the Swiss.
 
Above: "With free pocket pouch."
 
Above: The city "Basel" in the address gave away its Swiss origin and intended market. The company, headquartered in Germany at the time - the American company Johnson & Johnson would buy it shortly - probably had distributers throughout the world.
Above: "High absorbency" in the three languages of Switzerland (Italian at lower right). I wonder if a smaller Italian market (Latin conservatism about using tampons) is the reason these are the only - but important - Italian words on the box.

NEXT pocket pouch - tampon - instructions

See other o.b. ads: French (ooo.ooo.b., 1989) - German (early 1950s) - German nude (1970s) - German ("Egyptian," 1970s) - A British Tampax ad using nudity (1992) - And see other ads directed at teenagers.

© 2006 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any of the work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org