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Commercials, circa 1950s-1995, bulk 1968-1989

 Series
Accession: 1995-300Identifier: 1995-300-I.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1950s-1995
  • Creation: bulk 1968-1989

Scope and Contents

The Commercials series consists of DuPont Company commercials for more than fifty DuPont products. The products most heavily represented are Teflon cookware, Silverstone cookware, Lucite Paints, Rally Car Wax, medical products, and agrichemicals. Medical products include the Automatic Clinical Analyzer, Diamond Knife, Luminescence Biometer, mammography, mass spectrometer, overdose antidote, Teflon voice boxes, Thallium heart attack prevention, and X-ray subtraction. Commercials on agrichemicals cover DuPont research, crop protection, agrochemical testing, Extrazine II herbicide, Krovar herbicide, nitrogen fixation studies of soybeans, and pesticides. There are several commercials related to DuPont safety measures taken at plants to ensure workplace safety, as well as the safe transportation of chemicals, double wall oil tankers for marine life, and noise and vibration reduction. There are also several commercials related to DuPont programs for alcohol rehabilitation, energy conservation, personal safety program for rape prevention, and job training programs for inmate rehabilitation. Commercials for DuPont’s man-made fibers include Coolmax, Kevlar, Lycra, Tyvek, and Nomex fire retardant suits. The automobile products represented in this series are for Gas Booster, Exhaust Manifold Reactor, Nomex filter bags, Refinish, safety auto glass, and Zerex Antifreeze.

One of DuPont’s marketing campaigns used the tagline “There's A Lot of Good Chemistry Between Us.” These commercials generally feature a narrator having a conversation with one or more people in a particular situation being informed about how a DuPont invention impacts their life without them even being aware of it. The commercial generally does not focus on a single product, but rather on a single material that is used in a variety of products. For example, in one commercial, a family is walking through their new home while it is under construction and the narrator is explaining to them how Methanol is used to make various parts of their home. Another advertising campaign termed “The Originators” commercials, again does not focus on a particular product, but rather on a significant contribution DuPont scientists have made through research in a particular area. Each commercial features a DuPont scientist talking about their research area. For example, one commercial features Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar, discussing all the different uses of the synthetic material.

There is one reel containing commercials that do not promote DuPont products. It contains a series of commercials for the Union Carbide Corporation dating from the 1950s. The Union Carbide Corporation is a chemical manufacturing company established in 1917. The structure of these commercials seems to have been an influence on the structure of many of the DuPont Company’s commercials in the 1970s and 1980s. These commercials have a narrative storyline involving the company's product or invention, a narrator, and a tagline ending with the company logo.

Most reels are small and only contain one commercial, however, there are several composite and corporate reels containing many commercials. Commercials are either thirty or sixty seconds long and were produced between 1950 and 1995, with a bulk of the commercials dating from 1968 to 1989.

Extent

From the Collection: 70 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Access to Collection

No restrictions on access; this collection is open for research.

Film material is located in remote storage. Please contact staff 48 hours in advance of research visit at askhagley@hagley.org

Related Names

Creator

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Audiovisual Collections Repository

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