The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Seems strange to delete an article about such a common brand name product but that's the consensus here. Liz Read! Talk! 21:31, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tender Vittles[edit]

Tender Vittles (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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No refs on the page for many years. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find, but other than blogs and adverts going back many years, I'm not finding anything significant. Nothing that looks like a RS which meets the GNG to me. JMWt (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also if anyone can decipher what happened at the first AfD, I'd be curious to know. I assume it was a !keep but it isn't clear. JMWt (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Looks like basically a passing mention; I can see it here on Internet Archive. Tender Vittles are actually mentioned (in passing) in a ton of articles on Google Scholar, because it serves as a useful example of a descriptive trademark. There's discussion of a related court-case in a few places e.g. see ref.[1] I suspect better sources exist given the prominence of the brand, although they may not be online. I would expect more discussion of the brand in marketing/brand/law books by academics. Suriname0 (talk) 01:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's the press release.[2] I can't see any evidence the relaunch was actually reported on at the time i.e. in 2011. Small press blurbs about the discontinuation.[3] Still not seeing anything that looks like WP:SIGCOV. Suriname0 (talk) 01:52, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Promising: another source[4] lists marketing articles from 1977, and provides the following citation and note: Top Promotions, Fall, 1976: How Nestle Got a Head Start in a Burgeoning Category. Curt Schleier, Product Marketing, February 1977, pp. 33-36. [Hendon] 77-468. "Most of the article discusses Nestle's cookie mix, while space is also given to Purina Tender Vittles cat food (best packaging)." I wasn't able to find an online copy of the source, but it could very well have significant coverage. Suriname0 (talk) 03:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This source[5] discusses the more recent reacquisition of the brand, in two sentences. Suriname0 (talk) 21:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Schloss, Daniel I. (1996). "Marks of Distinction: Rethinking Secondary Meaning Standards in Trademark Law after Qualitex v. Jacobson". Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. 14: 695. In Ralston Purina Co. v. Thomas J. Lipton, Inc., Purina sought an injunction against Lipton's use of "Tender Dinners" as a mark for cat food, claiming that its own "Tender Vittles" mark had acquired secondary meaning by virtue of Purina's substantial advertising expenditures and the results of two surveys.
  2. ^ LLC, Retrobrands USA. "Famous Tender Vittles Cat Food Relaunched To Cat Lovers Across U.S.A." PRLog. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  3. ^ "tender_vittles_disco_FL_20070803". Florida Today. 2007-08-03. p. 49. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  4. ^ "Marketing Abstracts". Journal of Marketing. 41 (4): 114–131. 1977. doi:10.2307/1250244. ISSN 0022-2429.
  5. ^ Solnik, Claude (2017-08-04). "Comeback kings | Long Island Business News". Retrieved 2023-03-17. While sometimes brands simply run their course, others are discontinued after a problem, even if their good will remains. Tender Vittles, for instance, was pulled after a manufacturing problem long forgotten by many led to bad publicity.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.