Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/27/is-corona-beer-experiencing-th.html
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While the product’s name was changed to Diet Ayds
AYDS CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS, 1988
“Gentlemen, we know the problem. The question is, what will we do about it?”
“I have an idea, sir, but it’s pretty radical.”
“This is no time for caution, son! Let’s hear it!”
“Well, sir, what if we stuck the word ‘diet’ in front of the word everyone associates with a fatal and socially stigmatized illness?”
“You mean, rename AYDS to Diet AYDS?”
“Er… in a nutshell, yes, sir.”
“My god. The boldness of it. They’ll think we’ve gone mad. But perhaps it’s just crazy enough to work.”
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Creative marketers would just embrace the situation.
We’re all gonna die!! Pass me a Corona.
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The sad story of cough medicine sold in candy form as a weight loss aid whose active ingredient has since been withdrawn from the market in most of the world due to stroke risk because it also happened to have a name that sounded like a deadly disease?
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Unless the virus becomes Capt. Tripps, unlikely.
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It will depend on how long the virus will be deadly and in the news. Anthrax the band survived the news cycle. Isis from Archer didn’t.
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Here in Vermont during the AIDS crisis we had a company, “Health Insurance of Vermont” that had an illuminated sign (can’t find a picture, but it was in Colchester) with their company name: “HIV”
And there was a Vermont clothing manufacturer called ISIS until recently.
finally, I gotta wonder, did the folks who make Nexium, the antacid, have some meeting to talk about the fact that the sex-extortion/pyramid scheme cult NXIVM was pronounced exactly the same way?
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They should have gone with Ayds Lite instead. Then everyone would have known it wasn’t as bad as regular Ayds.
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I remember their brilliant announcement that Antrax were going to change their name to ‘Basket Full of Puppies’
‘In light of current events, we are changing the name of the band to something more friendly, “Basket Full Of Puppies”… In the twenty years we’ve been known as “Anthrax”, we never thought the day would come that our name would actually mean what it really means… Before the tragedy of September 11th the only thing scary about Anthrax was our bad hair in the 80’s and the “Fistful Of Metal” album cover. Most people associated the name Anthrax with the band, not the germ. Now in the wake of those events, our name symbolizes fear, paranoia and death. Suddenly our name is not so cool. To be associated with these things we are against is a strange and stressful situation.’
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I have a very clear memory from when I was an early teen(mostly white suburbia town near San Diego), walking into the local grocery store, and hearing a news report over the store “musak” about Ayds and how it had killed a number of more people…AND i can also clearly remember thinking to myself at the time, “You know, they really should remove that diet supplement from the market if it’s killing so many people.”
It would be a few weeks more before I read an article in the paper discussing AIDS and the epidemic that was occurring outside my sheltered existence. It became more sobering when I talked with my mom(a labor and delivery nurse at a hospital in a lower income part of San Diego) and the beginning impacts at her work.
I haven’t thought about this in so many many years, but it’s still so clear in my head. I think that was the beginning of the end of my childhood.
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What WAS the main active ingredient? They never said.
Corona beer is experiencing the effects of being a disgusting pre-skunked bong water tasting beer.
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I associated it with Gruinard Island
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The active ingredient was originally benzocaine, presumably to reduce the sense of taste to reduce eating, later changed in the candy to phenylpropanolamine
I remember having these as a kid, swiping them from my mom because I thought they were caramels. Which they were, kind of…
If I remember, they were actually kind of tasty, which seems like it would defeat the purpose but not the company’s bottom line.
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Castle Anthrax
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benzocaine, at first, later changed to phenylpropanolamine (sez Wikipedia). Wild.
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Have you tried the refreshing taste of Corona (virus) and Lyme (disease)?
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wow, AYDS. haven’t heard about that in a looong time. that’s a deep cut only Gen-Xers probably remember (well, and Boomers, because Boomers).
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They could have really emphasized the effectiveness by renaming them “FULL BLOWN AYDS”.
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Corona is not good beer anyway 
