Parkay is a margarine made by ConAgra Foods and introduced in 1937. It is available in spreadable, sprayable and squeezeable forms.
Contents
Parkay was made and sold by National Dairy Products Corporation from 1937 to 1995, then Nabisco Brands, Inc. from 1995 to 1999 and then ConAgra Foods, Inc. since 1999.
The product label states that the product contains 0g trans fat. Yet the ingredients listed on the package include hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. The Food and Drug Administration allows food manufacturers to claim "0g of trans fats," so long as each serving of the product has less than half a gram of trans fat.
Ingredients for Parkay Margarine Sticks
As cited on FoodServiceDirect.com web site.
Advertising
In the 1940s and 1950s, Parkay was the long-time sponsor of the radio program The Great Gildersleeve.
Starting in 1973, a long-running advertising campaign was introduced for Parkay featuring a mechanically animated "talking tub" of the product. A typical ad depicted a sort of humorous verbal sparring match between a character mentioning Parkay, and the talking package (its lid flipping up in imitation of a mouth) correcting him by saying "butter" in a deadpan voice. The tagline: [announcer] "Parkay Margarine from Kraft--the flavor says..." [package] "...butter." Along with the TV ad, there was a "PARKAY" radio jingle, :30 seconds, written by David Grober and with a variety of performers; the most famous of these performers was Thurl Ravenscroft, who was also the voice of Tony the Tiger.
The 1973 commercial featured a voice over claiming Parkay tastes like butter. An argumentative housewife looks at a square box of Parkay in her kitchen and says "Parkay". The box of Parkay responds "butter", and they go back and forth until she tries a taste of it and she says "butter". At that point, the margarine says "Parkay!" This was possibly the first Parkay Margarine commercial that featured the phrase "the flavor says butter".
This ad campaign was also spoofed in a skit from the PBS series The Electric Company (with cast member Skip Hinnant providing the foodstuff's voice).