Wednesday, December 29, 2021

A&P Happy New Year Ad – Dec. 29, 1971

Fifty years ago, grocery giant A&P ran this full page New Year-themed ad (complete with two chubby Baby New Years) in the Lorain Journal. The ad seems to include all of the items needed for a traditional New Year’s celebration: pork, sauerkraut, potatoes, wine, champagne – and Alka-Seltzer.

Alka-Seltzer? I haven’t thought of that product in years.

But it’s still sold, although not in the classic glass cylinder (below).

Courtesy Pinterest

Now it looks like this (below). Alas, no retro charm at all.

Anyway, I’ve written many times about how the mighty A&P chain is no more. 

And what about its former stores indicated in the ad? It doesn’t seem like very many of the former locations are still grocery stores. The address for the Vermilion A&P is home to Steinacker True Value Hardware; 1600 Kansas Avenue in Lorain is the address for Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority; the Sheffield Lake store was located in the part of Shoreway Shopping Center that was later demolished; a Rural King is located at 430 Oberlin Road in Elyria.

On the other hand, Apples is carrying on the A&P tradition, with one of its grocery stores at 209 E. Herrick in Wellington, as well as one at 250 Abbe Road in Elyria.

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2 comments:

  1. BusterDecember 29, 2021 at 10:30 PM

    Sorry that the elegant old packaging is gone. The new one looks cheap.

    For many years, the product was plugged by the onomatopoetic jingle, "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz / Oh, what a relief it is!" Even though I heard the jingle thousands of times, I never once used the product.

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  2. AaronDecember 30, 2021 at 12:30 AM

    The "plop plop fizz fizz" jingle was created to subtly increase the dose to the public through a jingle. Marketing 101 gone wild.

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