Gap (brand)

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SPALT (word mark)
Owner / user Pfizer Inc.

owner Pfizer Consumer Healthcare GmbH, 10785 Berlin, DE
Products Medicinal products: pain relievers
Website www.spalt-online.de

Spalt is a well-known brand for pain relievers in the German-speaking area , the trademark rights of which are owned by the Pfizer Group.

history

It became famous in the 1930s when Privy Councilor Leo Maximilian Baginski gave the tablet a characteristic shape through the gap that could also be felt in the dark. This gap gave the remedy its name and, in terms of advertising, symbolized the splitting of the pain through the medicinally active components of the time, salicylamide , phenyldimethylpyrazone salicyate, caffeine and mandelic acid benzyl ester . The Spalt Tablets brand was founded on October 20, 1931 through the company Dr. Ballowitz Co. and registered on January 15, 1932. On June 1, 1932, Baginski founded the company Prof. Dr. Much under the name of his partner Hans Much . Much's Preparations AG. Chem. Pharmacist Products through free distribution to pharmacies with a wide-ranging advertising campaign, as a result of which “Spalt” became one of the market leaders in the pain reliever market.

Due to the openness regarding the advertising strategy and costs, which was unusual in the economic circles of the time, this could be publicly analyzed and documented in advertising circles. The following data are shown:

year Price (20s) Advertising budget Share of sales
1932 1.40 RM 62.6%
1933 1.40 RM like 1933 25.6%
1934 1.40 RM like 1933
1935 1.20 RM like 1933 7.5%
... ... like 1933
1941 0.91 RM like 1933 0.68%

In 1932, 62.6 percent of sales were spent on advertising. With the absolute annual amounts remaining the same for the next decade, the advertising budget's share of total sales fell to 0.68 percent. In this way, Spalt became the market leader alongside Togal and Aspirin . The further development through the decades:

  • 1940s: Baginski as a prisoner of war, expropriation of the manufacturing plants, Dr. Ballowitz & Co. as brand owners at the heart of the new beginning
  • 1950s: Split composition (according to advertising): phenacetin , caffeine , phenylglycolic acid benzyl ester, pyraz.-phenyldim.-salicyl.
  • 1960: absence of specific ingredient information in advertising, the double slit ( acetylsalicylic acid ), Brewing gap (effervescent tablet)
  • 1980s: television commercials; “Spalt switches off the pain. - Schnell. “With analogue to a rotary switch (which was still used in old buildings as a light switch ), rotating tablet display, new recipe: Spalt N ( ASS , Paracetamol , 1985), 50th anniversary
  • 1990s: gap pain gel ("gap in the tube"), gap plus (with caffeine), from 1996 gap A + P (instead of gap N ), gap night (without caffeine)
  • 2000s: Spalt Liqua, Spalt Liqua Migraine, Spalt mobil, Spalt forte (liquid capsules ibuprofen, without notch)
  • 2010s: remaining products:
    • Tablets: Spalt (ASS and Paracetamol), Doppel Spalt Compact (ASS), Spalt Plus Caffeine N (ASS, Paracetamol, Caffeine)
    • Liquid capsules: cleft headache (200 mg ibuprofen); Spalt Forte, Spalt Migraine, Spalt Mobil (400 mg ibuprofen) - according to the instructions for use, all 400 mg preparations are composed identically.

The changes in advertising content and product range show the developments in marketing: From the former, supposedly omnipotent multiple preparation against various causes of pain, to generally positioned individual preparations, to special preparations with identical contents.

In 1972 the meanwhile in Prof. Dr. med. Much AG restructured parent company to American Home Products Corp. sold (which was renamed Wyeth in 2002 ), where it was incorporated into the Whitehall International subsidiary as Whitehall-Much GmbH . Following the takeover of the Wyeth Group in 2010, the Spalt brand also belongs to Pfizer.

Split tablets were manufactured by Berlin-Chemie in the GDR . After the German unification, the brand name had to be dropped because of the rights of the western trademark owner.

criticism

The advice Bitter Pillen advises against the original split tablet formulation with its combination of salicylamide , phenyldimethylpyrazone salicyate, caffeine and mandelic acid benzyl ester, but classified newer painkillers under the name Split , which contain only one active ingredient ( acetylsalicylic acid ), as appropriate.

Brand reception

Frankfurt Radisson Blu Hotel, popularly known as gap-tablet called

Due to the popularity achieved through advertising, the name was also transferred to other exposed objects, for example both the Frankfurt Radisson Blu Hotel and a tablet-like art object in the exhibition Germany - Land of Ideas is popularly referred to as a split tablet .

literature

  • Rudolf von Nolting: Privy Councilor LM Baginski and his work. Based on private records and documents (= materials on Bad Soden's history. H. 13). Edited by the working group for Bad Soden history with the support of the Bad Soden a. Ts., [Bad Soden] 1993, DNB 931413745 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See trademark query at the German Patent and Trademark Office : figurative mark 000716258 , word mark Spalt 886778 and the original word and figurative mark 441435 . In: dpma.de, accessed on November 28, 2017. Also other brands with the term Spalt
  2. ↑ "Gap". In: register.dpma.de, German Patent and Trademark Office, accessed on November 28, 2017 ("Register information. Register number: 441435. Trademark deleted").
  3. ^ Rudi Richter : Commercial advertising in the social market economy (= reference books for the economy ). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1959, ISBN 3-663-12494-0 ; Reprint: Springer, ISBN 978-3-663-12494-8 ( preview in Google book search).
  4. ↑ Instructions for use: Information for the user. Gap Forte ( Memento from August 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: spalt-online.de. Information as of February 2013, accessed on November 28, 2017 (PDF; 650 kB),
    Instructions for use: Information for the user. Spalt Mobil ( Memento from August 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: spalt-online.de. Information as of February 2013, accessed on November 28, 2017 (PDF; 623 kB),
    Instructions for use: Information for the user. Split Migraine ( Memento from August 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: spalt-online.de. Information as of February 2013, accessed on November 28, 2017 (PDF; 625 kB).
  5. ^ Medicines from a bygone state ( Memento from March 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: mdr.de. MDR television , November 10, 2016, accessed on November 28, 2017.
  6. ↑ Tablet object from the exhibition Germany - Land of Ideas. In: virtuelleallgemeinbibliothek.de, accessed on November 28, 2017.
  7. ^ Constanze Kleis : Instructions for use for Frankfurt am Main. Piper Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-492-27579-8 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2012072716001 ( preview in Google book search).