Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tender Vittles (3rd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Seems strange to delete an article about such a common brand name product but that's the consensus here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:31, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tender Vittles

AfDs for this article:

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No refs on the page for many years. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find, but other than blogs and adverts going back many years, I'm not finding anything significant. Nothing that looks like a RS which meets the GNG to me. JMWt (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Animal and Companies. JMWt (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also if anyone can decipher what happened at the first AfD, I'd be curious to know. I assume it was a !keep but it isn't clear. JMWt (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Just in my looking for sources, it seems like a really poor case for satisfying notability policy, so I'm leaning delete unless there are a few additional sources out there. All the sources are pretty much that the product simply exists and is sold (from vendor websites) with little to no actual secondary independent sources on it. The only source that seems to scrape slightly above the bottom of the can is from cats.com Pretty meh, but if there are other reliable sources that talk about semi-moist cat food like this product, then it may just be worth a redirect to Cat_food#Commercial_foods with a new section on semi-moist food. It seems hard to reach the point of sourced notability here though. KoA (talk) 17:58, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's mentioned here [1] but I don't have access to it, so I can't comment how notable it is. Oaktree b (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like basically a passing mention; I can see it here on Internet Archive. Tender Vittles are actually mentioned (in passing) in a ton of articles on Google Scholar, because it serves as a useful example of a descriptive trademark. There's discussion of a related court-case in a few places e.g. see ref.^[1] I suspect better sources exist given the prominence of the brand, although they may not be online. I would expect more discussion of the brand in marketing/brand/law books by academics. Suriname0 (talk) 01:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the press release.^[2] I can't see any evidence the relaunch was actually reported on at the time i.e. in 2011. Small press blurbs about the discontinuation.^[3] Still not seeing anything that looks like WP:SIGCOV. Suriname0 (talk) 01:52, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Promising: another source^[4] lists marketing articles from 1977, and provides the following citation and note: Top Promotions, Fall, 1976: How Nestle Got a Head Start in a Burgeoning Category. Curt Schleier, Product Marketing, February 1977, pp. 33-36. [Hendon] 77-468. "Most of the article discusses Nestle's cookie mix, while space is also given to Purina Tender Vittles cat food (best packaging)." I wasn't able to find an online copy of the source, but it could very well have significant coverage. Suriname0 (talk) 03:17, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This source^[5] discusses the more recent reacquisition of the brand, in two sentences. Suriname0 (talk) 21:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Schloss, Daniel I. (1996). "Marks of Distinction: Rethinking Secondary Meaning Standards in Trademark Law after Qualitex v. Jacobson". Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. 14: 695. In Ralston Purina Co. v. Thomas J. Lipton, Inc., Purina sought an injunction against Lipton's use of "Tender Dinners" as a mark for cat food, claiming that its own "Tender Vittles" mark had acquired secondary meaning by virtue of Purina's substantial advertising expenditures and the results of two surveys.
^ LLC, Retrobrands USA. "Famous Tender Vittles Cat Food Relaunched To Cat Lovers Across U.S.A." PRLog. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
^ "tender_vittles_disco_FL_20070803". Florida Today. 2007-08-03. p. 49. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
^ "Marketing Abstracts". Journal of Marketing. 41 (4): 114–131. 1977. doi:10.2307/1250244. ISSN 0022-2429.
^ Solnik, Claude (2017-08-04). "Comeback kings | Long Island Business News". Retrieved 2023-03-17. While sometimes brands simply run their course, others are discontinued after a problem, even if their good will remains. Tender Vittles, for instance, was pulled after a manufacturing problem long forgotten by many led to bad publicity.

Redirect to Cat_food#Commercial_foods. It existed, but there doesn't seem to be coverage. Valereee (talk) 18:12, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Just because it exists does not mean needs an article. As it fails WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV, what article it does have should be deleted. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Mentions and promos are not SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth. None of the sources in the article are SIGCOV from IS RS, none of the sources mentioned above are more than mentions, nothing that meets SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth. Evidnece of existence is not enough to merit an article. No objection to a consensus redirect. // Timothy :: talk 05:53, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey User:TimothyBlue, can I take it from your comment that you were able to access a print or digital copy of "How Nestle Got a Head Start in a Burgeoning Category" (1977) article mentioned above? If so, would you mind describing or quoting the relevant contents for the purpose of this discussion? Suriname0 (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - the commonality of the name makes searches difficult, but I can't find any in-depth coverage about this product. I was surprised, as I thought it would be an easy keep. I actually used to see this in the cat food aisle back in the day when I had cats. No prejudice to recreation if in-depth sourcing can be found.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 20:12, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

[1] Schloss, Daniel I. (1996). "Marks of Distinction: Rethinking Secondary Meaning Standards in Trademark Law after Qualitex v. Jacobson". Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. 14: 695. In Ralston Purina Co. v. Thomas J. Lipton, Inc., Purina sought an injunction against Lipton's use of "Tender Dinners" as a mark for cat food, claiming that its own "Tender Vittles" mark had acquired secondary meaning by virtue of Purina's substantial advertising expenditures and the results of two surveys.

[2] LLC, Retrobrands USA. "Famous Tender Vittles Cat Food Relaunched To Cat Lovers Across U.S.A." PRLog. Retrieved 2023-03-16.

[3] "tender_vittles_disco_FL_20070803". Florida Today. 2007-08-03. p. 49. Retrieved 2023-03-16.

[4] "Marketing Abstracts". Journal of Marketing. 41 (4): 114–131. 1977. doi:10.2307/1250244. ISSN 0022-2429.

[5] Solnik, Claude (2017-08-04). "Comeback kings | Long Island Business News". Retrieved 2023-03-17. While sometimes brands simply run their course, others are discontinued after a problem, even if their good will remains. Tender Vittles, for instance, was pulled after a manufacturing problem long forgotten by many led to bad publicity.

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