539. Brand History: QUAKER OATS, Philippine Ads, 1926-1981

QUAKER OATS, one of the early oat meal brands that founds its way in the Philippines during the American period, has a long and hallowed history that. It began as early as 1850 when the first of  several milling companies was formed, that would in time, merged with other millers, leading to the etsbalishment of a successful oatmeal company. 

1877 is recognized as the brand’s founding year when it was registered that year  by Henry Parsons Crowell, making QUAKER OATS the first trademarked breakfast cereal in the U.S., symbolizing honesty and purity. Its brand character is a hatted, white-haired man in a cravat, an iconic Quaker man, though to have been chosen by  former owners, Henry Seymour and William Heston, a symbol of good quality and honest value.

QUAKER OATS "Back from School" Print Ad, 1926, "Lipang Kalabaw"

Merging in 1901 with other mills to form the Quaker Oats Company, it revolutionized breakfast with the first rolled oats, boxed recipes, and later, instant oatmeal. Though QUAKER OATS’ first advertising  began in 1882, its introduction in the Philippines merited advertising only in the 1920s with print ads for the Rolled Oats variety. The product was imported and distributed by Muller & Phipps (Manila) Ltd.,

QUAKER Quick Cooking OATS, 1936

In 1922, the QUAKER Quick-Cooking Oats was introduced, one of the first convenience products that was widely known in the Philippines after the War, In 1966, Quaker Instant Oatmeal was launched. Four years later, in 1970, the first flavored oatmeal –Maple & Brown Sugar--was distributed regionally.The Chewy Granola Bars were introduced to the world in 1981. 

EVERYBODY LOVES QUAKER OATS, 1960 Print Ad

QUAKER "The Best on the Shelf" 1967 Ad

Today, QUAKER  is a subsidiary of PepsiCo, which acquired the company in 2001, and continues its presence in the Philippines, as Quaker Oats Philippines, ensuring the continuity of the brand which is more than 140 years old.

GROW TALL WITH QUAKER, Print Ad, 1968

A HERITAGE OF GOODNESS, Print Ad, 1981

538. Those Adorable DARIGOLD KIDS of the ‘60s: Then and Now

When readers opened their magazines in 1963, they were treated to a spread of colored ads of DARIGOLD MILK featuring wide-eyed, happy-looking kids—perfect models of the milk’s promise of healthy goodness and tender love.

By that time, DARIGOLD was the No. 1 milk brand in the country, backed by its savvy marketing and well-crafted advertising, professionally made by its ad agency, Philprom, founded by Pete Teodoro in 1945. Not bad for the evaporated milk brand that had to be imported all the way from Seattle to be introduced in the Philippines in 1953.

The 1963-1964 campaign was launched first with a lead-off print ad featured 2 vignette shots of a young mom with her school-age daughter holding a glass of milk in one hand. In the foreground are two younger siblings with their toys, showing the boy giving her little sister a peck on her cheek.

A separate ad was spun off using the version with the two siblings being wowed as they are handed with a glass of DARIGOLD Milk.

The next in the print ad series showed a fair-haired girl holding a glass of DARIGOLD Milk with the headline:  “More, more, more…DARIGOLD gives you more!”. A jingle based on that line was created by the agency and became a national hit.

The last ad was a Black & White ad with 2 spot colors, touting the leadership position of DARIGOLD, which by then was the most preferred and best-selling brand. A curly-locked boy in a DARIGOLD shirt leading a trike race was the main visual, to drive home the point of the no. 1 milk in the market.

A quick search of the identities of the kiddie models yielded so many fascinating facts that are now inextricably linked with the milk brand’s history. In the 60s, the country head of DARIGOLD was Mr. Louie Benitez, a member of the prominent Benitez Family that included statesman and educator Dean Conrado Benitez and senator Helena Tirona Benitez.

 

Louie’s sister, Leila Benitez was known as the First Lady of Philippine TV, famous for hosting the first Student Canteen, and, what else—DARIGOLD Jamboree in 1965. Even DARIGOLD’s ad agency had a Benitez connection; Fred Benitez was a co-founder of Philprom.

It was no wonder then that the models in the aforementioned print ads were also Benitezes—Mr. Louie Benitez’s own wife and children.The kick-off ad that showed a Mom and her daughter, was no less than his wife Nena Mapa-Benitez and daughter Annie, on her lap. Annie now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The two kissin’ kids with their toys on the floor are siblings Ricky and Pia Benitez. Ricky Benitez grew up and worked in his father’s trading company. He is now a Pastor who lives in Bacolod.

 Pia, now Mrs. Yupangco, is an artist and a freelance writer. In her college years, she became an intern at J. Walter Thompson where she bagged a 7-Up talent gig. Her father, however, thumbed down the idea of her out-of-town shooting, and thus ended her short modeling career.

 “We were nepo babies before it became uso 😆”, recalls Pia when asked how she became a DARIGOLD model. “My dad Louie Benitez was general manager of Darigold in the Philippines, that’s how!.  Even my grade school batch got to go to the Darigold manufacturing and repacking facility!” Pia also vaguely remembers shoting a DARIGOLD TV commercial at the Magallanes Park by the Philprom ad agency.

Soon, the original “nepo babies” were joined by more Benitezes—their cousins! In the 2^nd print ad, the winsome child with her glass of DARIGOLD was portrayed by Mitos Benitez (now Yñiguez). She was the daughter of Mario Benitez—brother of Louie, more well-known as the founder of the classic MARIO’s, the hugely popular Italian Restaurant, located in Baguio. Today, Mitos  continues the family’s restaurant business tradition, by running the highly-rated Hill Station , a comfort food restaurant at Casa Vallejo in Baguio City.

Mitos’ brother—Anton Benitez, on the other hand, was the curly-haired trike rider  speeding ahead of other cartoon racers in the 3^rd print ad. A La Salle graduate, Anton along with brothers Fil and Marlo now runs MARIO’s, which recently opened a branch in Clark Field, Pampanga.

 DARIGOLD’s  life cycle was cut short in 1976 when it ceased production due to contractual obligation problems. But for the Benitez kids, there was no crying over spilled milk. They have all moved on from being accidental commercial talents for an icon brand built by their father, to even more important matters like earning their education, acquiring skills and venturing into different careers, based on their passions—all pursued well, and successfully. DARIGOLD, in a special way, has proven to be “so good for the whole family”—as its longtime slogan says,

SOURCES:

FB Messenger interview with, Pia Benitez-Yupangco

Contributed photos from the Benitez children

Photo od the Benitezes as adults, from their FB groups. 

Photo of Mitos Benitez , by Wig Tysmans

Many thanks to Lisa Nepomuceno-Mapua for facilitating contact with the Benitez siblings.

537. The Ad Model’s Model: BOOTS ANSON-ROA, various endorsements 1968-1978

BOOTS ANSON ROA (now Maria Elisa Cristobal Anson-Rodrigo, b. 30 Jan. 1945), may very well be one of the most versatile celebrities of the 60s thru the 70s—she was a sought-after TV and movie personality, actress, host and emcee, columnist, and diplomat. She also had an impeccable background as spotless and wholesome as the image she projected, that companies used her as a spokesperson and endorser of products.

The daughter of post-war actor Oscar Moreno and Belen Cristobal-Anson, a pharmacist-chemist, Boots was educated at the Assumption,  and the University of the Philippines (1960-64, Speech & Drama), where, as an ROTC campus beauty, appeared on a magazine cover.  Her studies were interrupted when she married Pete Roa in 1964, a popular TV host of Channel 5’s “Dance-o-Rama”.  Baby O’Brien originally co-hosted the show, and Boots stepped in when she left for her U.S. studies.

She went on to foray in movies beginning in 1968, ding over a hundred films, highlighted by a FAMAS Best Actress award in 1973 for the movie, “Tatay na si Erap” and a Lifetime Achievement Awardee,  also from the said body.

The well-respected Anson-Roa lent her credibility in various advertisements shown on this page. She promoted appliances, beauty products, food and beverages, all through the 60s and 80s. She was most visible with her then husband Pete Roa in the Blend 45 campaign series that ran in the late 70s.

Considered as a role model, Anson-Roa also had a successful professional career in the gvernment. She was the director of the U.P.-PGH Medical Foundation (1979- 81 and the Red Cross (1980-82) In 1982, she was appointed as Press/Cultural Attache at the Philippine Embassy in Washington. She was also a TOWNS (Ten Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service) Awardee.

After being widowed in 2007, she wed Atty. Francisco Rodrigo Jr., son of Sen. Francisco "Soc" Rodrigo in 2014. The multi-awarded Boots Anson-Rodrigo  is set to launch her biography book this Jan. 2026, entitled "Grateful ," chronicling her checkered life and times.

SOURCES:

Boots Anson Roa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_Anson-Roa

536. And you thought Presto only made chocolates: PRESTO COFFEE, 1962

PRESTO COFFEE INTRO AD, "Magnifico!", 1962

“When you want-a good-o coffee, get PRESTO! It’s the very best-o!”

The local PRESTO brand of the Gokongwei-founded Consolidated Food Corp. (CFC)  is so well-associated with chocolate products-chocolate powder drink, cocoa, chocolate bars. Many have forgotten that its pioneer product was a coffee brand.

In 1961, after John Gokongwei Sr,  surveyed the local coffee landscape, decided that there was room more for new coffee brands. The market leader then was the post-war brand Café Puro of Commonwealth Foods Inc., which, by 1951, had become the no.1 selling coffee brand, a position it kept till the 1960s.

And so, New PRESTO COFFEE was launched in 1962—a 100% soluble coffee made from a unique blending process of choice coffee beans. Thus, PRESTO COFFEE claims to have a livelier aroma, and real perk-up flavor. An illustration of a distinctive bemoustached Italian coffee connoisseur accompanied the print ad.

The PRESTO Coffee brand, however was no match to Commonwealth Foods’ popular line of coffee brands that are so well-entrenched in the market. Nestle’s Nescafe, on the other hand, was gaining ground due its more premium image backed by a massive advertising budget.

So, Gokongwei looked at another more viable product venture—and saw SERG’s, which practically monopolized the chocolate market. In the second half of the 60s, CFC introduce a chocolate drink under the PRESTO Brand to test the market. Shortly after, it expanded to include chocolate products. The PRESTO chocolate line began to gain traction in the market, and the PRESTO coffee brand was discontinued. The rest is history for its successful chocolate line that came to include PRESTO ice cream, PRESTO Tivoli  and PRESTO fun fruit drinks.

CFC however, never forgot its coffee beginnings and launched Great Taste Coffee in the 70s. With its superior taste, product quality, and better, more sophisticated marketing support, Great Taste also became a huge better-late-than-never success for CFC.