Things We Loved | 07/12/2008 9:26 am

Down Memory Lane with TaB

By The Staff of wowOwow

Coca Cola Company

One look at TaB’s iconic 12-oz bottle tells you much of what you need to know about the early 60’s. The fashonable pebbled exterior, the space-age white star design embellishments and the mid-century modern white on eye-popping pink logo all speak to the youth and optimism of the post-Sputnik, pre-Kennedy assassination time period when the brand was rolled out by The Coca-Cola Company.

Hitting store shelves in early 1963, Tab helped launch and define the diet soda industry. Throughout the 1960s and 70s it ruled in college dorms, sorority houses, and the kitchens of young married women throughout America until it was superceded in 1982 by the introduction of the mega-brand dietCoke.

With its "TaB, For Beautiful People" tagline, TaB was a fashion accessory to the sexual revolution. Television ads from the period show a pre-Women’s Lib sensibility that positioned TaB as a smart gal’s secret weapon to both catching and keeping a man.

TaB’s famous "Mind-sticker" ad creative is true piece of pre-Ms. Magazine cultural history. Was this presented in the tongue in cheek, ironic way that it suggests today? More likely, this ad accurately presents the social and sexual sensibility of the pre gender-war times.

For more TaB-centric images and commentary, visit the I Love Tab website.

Read more about: Memory Lane, Tab, things we love

116 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Mind sticker? I know where I’D like to stick that offensive ad–––can’t believe we actually had ads like this. And yet–––and yet, we still promote the skinny stuff, although not as blatant ?

By phyllisDoylePepe on 07/12/2008 10:41 am

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Here’s something Phyllis that you might like. I get the The Carmel Pine Cone email edition each Friday (used to live there and like to read what’s going on). Lot this week about the Big Sur fires down the road, naturally. http://www.pineconearchive.com/downloads080711.htm

By NoWayNoHowNoMcCain on 07/12/2008 6:12 pm

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Yes that ad was offensive. But the same messages are out there today. It’s so interesting how image affects our power and position as women. Listening to NPR just this morning a Chinese woman discussed how the women dressed quite similar to men during the Mao Tse-Tung era and how their positions in society have declined as the women became increasingly fashionable and communism began to erode. The correlation between beauty and power is undeniable. I was watching a major dept. store ad over the 4th of July holidays, and there it was in dollars as well. Men’s khaki shorts $8, Women’s khaki shorts $14. It just made me furious. Twice as much material in the men’s shorts, and as we all know, heavier duty material, better constructed. 2008 and today we still make a third less of what men make and pay a third more for everything and we are constantly harangued to look pretty, stay thin and make sure we are fantasy-worthy. Men schlep around in wrinkled T-shirts and grubby jeans and we are expected to tart it up. The pressure and effect of image (fashion, weight control, makeup and now plastic surgery and bacterial injections) has undoubtedly continued to keep us in our place. (And out of the White House, lest we forget the sexism perpetrated by the male dominated media.) Argh!

By BuhBye on 07/13/2008 1:02 pm

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Have you ever noticed that the people in the grocery line buying the diet soda are always overweight? I’m not convinced that they’re buying the stuff BECAUSE they’re overweight, I think the chemicals in it probably cause people to gain weight.

By DeBrcaobj on 07/12/2008 11:59 am

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No, sweetie, I speak from experience. Eating too much causes overweight. Oh…and not enough exercise..

By DianaT on 07/12/2008 12:02 pm

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Well then, perhaps drinking diet soda stimulates the appetite, because I’ve never seen a thin person drinking the stuff.

By DeBrcaobj on 07/12/2008 12:34 pm

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Ah, but I’ve seen really obese people ordering it ………………………. with a hot fudge sundae (“hold the whipped cream, I’m on a diet”) :)

By AndyC on 07/12/2008 1:15 pm

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exactly my point!

By DeBrcaobj on 07/12/2008 1:58 pm

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JC B—I always correlate habits and results, too. My mother majored/minored in opera and nutrition in college. We had healthy food and great music. Soda/junk food was banned from her house and mine. I’ve always noticed that people who are slim and healthy have one like set of habits. Those who are overweight, unfit and unhealthy have another. 20 years ago tried to encourage my best friend to eat fresh foods and ditch the junk. I gave up after found her by the hotel pool on a trip to Mayo Clinic drinking martinis and eating hot fudge sundaes. She’s had nothing but bad health since and never connects the stuff in her shopping cart with her spending on doctors, hospitals, prescriptions. But, stellar money making/saving habits. Unfortunately, we all have our Achilles heel, I sure do.

By NoWayNoHowNoMcCain on 07/12/2008 1:37 pm

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I think that prepared and junk foods leave people unsatisfied, both physically, due to lack of nutrition and the consumption of additives and chemicals, and emotionally, with the lack of satisfaction due to a lack of taste and even a lack of the tactile pleasure a person gets from preparing food from scratch with natural ingredients. Perhaps this lack of satisfaction adds to the need to keep eating and eating.

By DeBrcaobj on 07/12/2008 2:03 pm

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JC B—-Exactly!! Am with you 100% on that. Few things are as pleasurable to me than buying beautiful, colorful, healthy things and then making something outstanding looking, tasting that is also loaded with nutrition. Enjoy while doing it with music/flowers that goes with it… French for French, Italian for Italian, and the wine and the entire thing. And can do it with little effort because it is natural to me, always thank my mother for that. It also goes to belief system. Either characterizing as a necessity/pleasure, or a wasted effort when rather grab a box of Ho-Hos and a 6-pack of something and go watch Dancing with the Stars. Entirely different mind-sets.

By NoWayNoHowNoMcCain on 07/12/2008 2:12 pm

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God, Winery, I haven’t had a ho-ho in 15 yrs. I used to love ‘em. Now, you’ll have me thinking of them the rest of the day. I also could put away a package of Oreos in one television-filled night. I gave up stopping at the cookie section of the grocery about 3 yrs. ago. Had to practically do a 12Step program to give up my cookie habit. But, for years around here, even though I consist of a family of one most of the time, everything in my house is cooked fresh. I do buy frozen vegetables in the winter. The occasional red meat I eat is always from a very small, old, local butcher shop, not from the supermarket; ditto for the fish. My screened porch is loaded with the produce I bought at the local farmer market this a.m., and I grow my own herbs. Very little processed food, and I am a Very Healthy and Fit 66 yrs. old. I am always amazed how many of my friends eat a restaurants every day, know nothing about the danger of processed foods, and hate to cook alone for themselves. Of course, you know where they like to eat home cookin’.

By DianaT on 07/12/2008 2:29 pm

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Diana…Never had a Ho-Ho just like the name of them, sounds funny and slightly indecent, good combo. But in the days of yore I put away some packs of Oreos too. Love Farmer’s Markets, too. Just spoke with my dear mummy who was rhapsodizing about her trip this AM to Whole Foods. Or, Mecca, as we like to call it. Love to talk with her. We’re two foodie wierdos who understand each other! When I lived in Carmel that was real heaven. A Whole Foods (well over a few exits in Monterey….but a super nice one) and one of the best Farmers Markets because the farms are all there in Carmel Valley. Aren’t we a lucky generation…..all that and ATMs and laptops too. Fabulous.

By NoWayNoHowNoMcCain on 07/12/2008 5:41 pm

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Hi, Winery, You gotta try a ho-ho some day. They are sort of like a Hostess Cup Cake; I’d probably have to go to hospital if I ate one these days. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, my daughter used to live in Sunnyvale, I loved to go to Carmel. Northern Californians take their food & wine seriously. Here in Central Ky. , it is getting much better than it used to be. Because we have phased almost all of the burley tobacco crops, farmers are more and more starting to grow crops and livestock for the nearby restaurants. We have a Whole Foods here now; my sister lives in Fairfax, Va. very near the flagship Whole Foods. She also has a Wegman’s; if you’ve never visited one, it is a Food Mecca, too. This time of year, I much prefer buying my produce locally. My sister and I are both food fanatics. So was my late husband, and I remember back in ‘85 when we attended the California Wine Experience in S.F., and then ate our way up the Napa and down the Sonoma. Can’t get better than that, and I was THIN, darn it!

By DianaT on 07/12/2008 7:44 pm

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Diana! I will try a Ho-Ho one of these days. OK, fellow foodie. Be prepared to be impressed. Posted this before: but so fantastic bears repeat. [Although when he says, “I’m liking this town, a little rundown, everyone’s drunk.” I think. “Sheesh, where are you? that’s not my SF, part of it yes, but not all of it!”] The French Laundry [Please—genuflect. Thank you.] Incredible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-5Sol8K-3o I don’t know Wegmans, but will look it up. I really respect regional shrines to elevation of food quality. Love Ky. Used to ride/own horses, including one given to me that was in the bloodlines of Northern Dancer. “Farmers are more and more starting to grow crops and livestock for the nearby restaurants.” Truly, I think the more organic farmers we have the better. Used to travel all over the US for business, to at least 300 cities and towns.Grateful saw do much of US that when read posts here and people identify the area, can really picture it, and some fun experience had nearby. We really do have an amazing country. Like France, which is so diverse, North, South, East and West, we are so rich in different cultures. “…Attended the California Wine Experience in S.F., and then ate our way up the Napa and down the Sonoma. OMG, can’t get better than that,fantastic!! “..and I was THIN, darn it!” Hey,if you’re happy and healthy, you look great. Nothing is more attractive than radiant happiness, right? Sounds like a great life to me in KY. Bluegrass. Emilylou Harris country…she is so fabulous! With the Derby and thoroughbreds such a great image. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2n2n46njdc&feature=related I really admire Napa and French winemakers so much…they really change culture to the better I think. And add so much to jobs, economy, healthy food culture. Robert Modavi really started this: Great guy: http://www.copia.org/

By NoWayNoHowNoMcCain on 07/12/2008 8:56 pm