How You Can Lose Weight -and Eat All You Want! (1953)
Zsa Zsa Gabor says, "Slim the Way the Stars Slim"
Ayds (pronounced as "aids") Reducing Plan Candy is a discontinued appetite-suppressant candy that enjoyed strong sales in the 1970s and early 1980s and was originally manufactured by The Carlay Company.
The product was introduced by the Carlay Company of Chicago in 1937. In 1944, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission objected to the claim that the product could cause the user to "lose up to 10 pounds in 5 days, without dieting or exercising."
By the mid-1980s, public awareness of the disease AIDS brought notoriety to the brand due to the phonetic similarity of names and the fact that the disease caused immense weight loss in patients. Initially sales were not negatively affected; in a September 1985 interview, the president of the company that manufactured it stated that in fact, sales had increased as a result of this connection.
Early in 1986, another executive of the manufacturer was quoted, "The product has been around for 45 years. Let the disease change its name."
The name of the product was changed in the United States in approximately January 1989 to Diet Ayds. Advertisements for Diet Ayds could be found in newspapers until at least 1993. The product has since been withdrawn from the market. ~ Wikipedia
Title: How You Can Lose Weight -and Eat All You Want!
Date: 1953
Company: Carlay Company, Incorporated
Product: Ayds
Digital Collection: Medicine and Madison Avenue: duke:340701
Full points to the Carley Co. marketing department for landing Zsa Zsa and Hedy as spokespersons...but "The product has been around for 45 years. Let the disease change it's name" has to be the worst PR in history.