High Gas Prices Have Resurrected the Additive, But Is It Worth the Risk?
Revisiting the Dura Lube / Motor Up / Slick 50 years
I’m sure I’m not the only one, but when gas prices hit an all-time high of $5 last summer, I started to think about possible DRTV solutions to the problem. Since I’m a student of industry history, the first idea I had was some kind of liquid you add to your engine to make your fuel go farther.
Before the turn of the century, such additives ruled the airwaves. Among other claims, they made promises like “improves gas mileage by up to 35 percent!” For fun, let’s time travel together and revisit these infomercial classics.
Marketed by The Media Group, Dura Lube dominated both the long form and short form Jordan Whitney (JW) “greensheets” of the late 1990s. In long form, it competed with the infomercial for National Media’s Motor Up.
Motor Up actually came first, hitting the charts in 1996.
For two years, Motor Up had the charts to itself. It was #42 on the 1996 JW annual, and #60 on the 1997 JW annual. But by 1998, it was down to #83, and Dura Lube (at #70) had taken over.
Dura Lube also hit the short-form charts that year, where it competed1 with a different product: Slick 50. Direct To Retail (DTR) originally ran the campaign, and then Blue Coral/Advanced Results Marketing (ARM).
Slick 50 was #45 on the 1998 JW annual, and DuraLube was #50. But by the following year, Dura Lube had done it again and taken over. On the 1999 JW annual ranking, the campaign was #24 while Slick 50 was down at #58.
Although Dura Lube won both of its duels on TV, all three of these campaigns were enormously successful. Add them up, and additives were a highly profitable DRTV category for about five years.
There was just one problem, though. The FTC did not like the claims — at all.
Returning to the present, last week’s DRMetrix report2 has a campaign in its top 50 that is clearly trying to dig up this Old Gold. What I ultimately decided was we don’t have the risk tolerance to run a high-profile TV campaign for the type of product that is mostly remembered for the size of its FTC settlements. However, it seems somebody else out there does.
Campaign: zMax Engine & Fuel Formulas
Marketer: Oil-Chem Research Corp.
I wish these guys luck and truly hope they can avoid the pitfalls of the past. There’s one encouraging sign you may have noticed from the dates I provided. While Slick 50 paid millions to the FTC, that was in 1997 — the year before the brand first appeared on the JW greensheets. In fact, it ranked for three years after that settlement, so somebody obviously figured out how to advertise the product in an FTC-approved way.
Dura Lube, on the other hand, didn’t make it. After having dominated its competitors on the airwaves, it buckled under the FTC pressure and eventually went bankrupt. However, the brand was later acquired (in 2005) and relaunched. In fact, both Slick 50 and Dura Lube products are on the shelf today. You can find them at Walmart and AutoZone.
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In the Dura Lube infomercial, the spokesman even disparages Slick 50 by name.
“Weekly Spend Index Report for ASONTV Brands,” Week 6, 01/30/2023 thru 02/05/2023