Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 31

Philadelphia Daily News Thursday September 8, 1983 Page 31 ITS 2Jr APPETITE SUPPRESSANT CANDY I L-J Helps Lose Weight Deliciously Chocolate JETW7 A 3 A Guide to What's Going On in and Around Philadelphia Grover Washington guest artist By JOSEPH P. BLAKE Daily News Staff Writer Country and western singer l.oretla I.ynn opens this evening at Resorts International Casino and Hotel. North Carolina Avenue and the ISoardwalk, Atlantic City. Lynn's hit records have included such diverse tunes as "The Pill." and "One's on the Way." Tickets are S21 and S26. Showtime is 8:30.

Info: 609-3 Sites to Be Seen "Forgotten Images." a display of historic photographs by German-town photographers, opens in the gallery of the Central Library. 19th and Vine streets today. The exhibition is based on the extensive collection of glass negatives, lantern slides and original prints owned by the Germantown Historical Society, The Free Library and the Library Compa-' ny. The display will be in the gallery through Oct. 31.

Admission is free. Info: 686-5425. Learning the Jazz The Settlement Music School is accepting applications for its Jazz Program, which includes a series of three workshopsmaster classes to be conducted by guest artists such as Stanley Clarke and Grover Washington Jr. For more information and an application form, write Settlement Music School, Jazz Program. P.O.

Box 25120. Philadelphia 19147, or call 336-0400. Tomorrow The Fourth Annual Pennsylvania Agricultural Foods Kxhibition kicks oil from 10 a m. to 6:30 p.m. at Independence Mall, 5th and Market streets.

Called "A Taste of Pennsylvania." the exhibition will offer farm produce and food products from Pennsylvania processors. There also is continuous entertainment in the form of bluegrass and country and western music. Admission is free. Info: 686-3649. TT misfortune of being pronounced The diet product AYDS has the YaBe off a MatrfketDims The Name Game Puts Makers of AYDS on Staff Photography by Michael Mercanti SiemnioirDa Diet of Anxiety vard Business School.

"It's a v.r unusual situation I've ncvu heard of anything similar be fore. "While it may appear to ho a serious problem from the prospective of an outsider observer, it may be perceived as less of a problem by the loyal user or the prospective user However there is a problem in that we're talking about a health-related product and a disease. As a result the possibility of misunderstanding is greater." Not to mention the negative association. Marketing a product that sounds like AIDS seems akin to pushing a weight-loss plan with the homonym of CANCKR. Wouldn't anvbody torn between buying AYDS and Brand X.

choose the latter because ot the name alone? "If I were Ueffrey I would reduce the level of radio advertising in favor of ads that show the correct spelling of the product name," Quelch concluded. Second. I would emphasize not so much the product's name, but its benefits, so that the name assumed a lower level of prominence in the overall campaign." James Fishman, a psychiatric social worker at a community health center and a member of Boston's AIDS Action Committee, said it Jet-See AYDS Page 34 come up with a snappy acronym. He said the words "acquired immune deficiency syndrome" were merely the proper medical terms to apply to the symptoms of the disease. Whatever the intent, it seems fair to say that that decision was a marketing nightmare for Jeffrey Martin Inc.

of I'nion, N.J.. the makers and distributors of AYDS. But William McGuire. a spokesman for Jeffrey Martin, said that after some frenetic huddling about changing the name, company officials decided not to. "The only calls we have gotten on this thing have been from reporters." McGuire said.

"Frankly, I think the public is a lot more discerning than you guys. I think the distinctive spelling of our product in print and television has prevented any unsavory connection between the product and the disease." Besides AYDS, Jeffrey Martin also distributes such products as Topol smoker's toothpolish, Bantron smoking deterrent tablets, Doan's Pills for muscular backache, Porcelana skin bleaching agent, Colorcx men's hair coloring and Pursettes tampons, products that largely create an anxiety and sell a cure. But any free marketeer has to sympathize with AYDS' predicament By BEN BRADLEE JR. Special to the Daily News The resonant voice of an announcer in a current radio commercial beseeching listeners to go out and get what sounds like AIDS is somewhat disconcerting these days. Radio is an aural medium and a listener may assume he is hearing A-I-D-S.

as in the new and mysterious illness that weakens the body's ability to ward off disease and primarily has stricken homosexuals. The announcer does not bother to spell what he is trying to sell, though it has had the bad luck to be pronounced the same way as AIDS, the lethal disease terrorizing a large segment of the population of the United States. AIDS did not take on its current name until last year. Robert Aldcn, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said that when doctors first began noticing symptoms of the disease in 1981, they called it Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunity Infections. Later, health officials decided to call it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.

That was easier on the tongue than KSOI would have been, but Alden denies it was anyone's intention to to a degree. After all. its name has been around for 46 years. Now comes a disease that is given a name explosive enough to blow AYDS out of the water. Or so one would think.

Jeffrey Martin became a public company in May and its stock is traded over the counter. It initially sold for S13 a share and closed last week at ll'i a small dip McGuire refuses to attribute to the AYDS-A IDS equation. He says there's been no drop-off in sales of AYDS. But even McGuire has got to be cursing being linked with a near epidemic. Still, Jeffrey Martin hasn't shied away from its product's name, opting to continue a steady drum beat of advertising.

"AYDS not contain a stimulant," goes one radio commercial. "It has nothing in it to make you nervous. The AYDS diet plan helps control your appetite so you lose weight The AIDS-AYDS link could well become a case study for marketing students on how best to manage a product when it is the victim of unfavorable and unforeseeable circumstances. "This problem had occurred to me as well, after I heard the commercial," said John A Quelch, assistant professor of marketing at the Har- i i i i i.