Band-Aids Went to the Moon and Are in MoMA's Collection

There’s yet to be a scientific study to prove it, but evidence suggests that Band-Aids aren't just good for cuts—they might help make you famous, too. Consider this. In 1975, the jingle “I am stuck on Band-Aid” debuted on national TV. The spot featured two unknown actors singing a tune by an unknown composer. They turned out to be Teri Garr, John Travolta, and Barry Manilow. There’s no word on what the two actors got paid, but Manilow—still a struggling composer—got $500 and was “grateful to have it,” he said in a recent interview. But even if Band-Aids can’t work career magic, it’s still fitting the celebs would share these sticky strips in common. After all, doesn’t everyone? According to company data, we have applied over 100 billion Band-Aid bandages to our cuts and scrapes, and it’s the world’s No. 1 doctor-recommended wound care brand, according to health care analytics firm IQVIA. So ubiquitous are Band-Aid products that it's among trade names like Velcro, Taser, and Kleenex synonymous with their categories. “Billions of people have used this brand over a century,” said Kamran Shahzad, marketing lead for U.S. wound care at Kenvue, the company created in 2023 when Johnson & Johnson spun off its consumer health care division. “It has turned into an iconic brand in our American culture.” That's not just marketing: Band-Aid strips went to the moon with the Apollo 11 crew, and the Museum of Modern Art has a Band-Aid in its collection. It’s a meteoric rise for what began as a humble home remedy. In 1920, Earle Dickson was a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson. As the story goes, his wife Josephine often cut herself while cooking. Grabbing some surgical tape and gauze (two products that J&J already made), Dickson fashioned what became the first Band-Aid. J&J adopted the invention, and a clever marketer sent free boxes to butchers and Boy Scout troops across America. The challenge with a product so simple is that it’s easily imitated, a reality that’s compelled Kenvue to innovate continuously. Flexible Fabric, Ourtone, Infection Defense, Water Block, Pro Heal, and a host of licensed-character editions from Spider-Man to Peppa Pig—all have kept the brand top of mind and center of the medicine cabinet. “We continue to leverage Band-Aid to ensure that generations to come use it and engage,” Shahzad said. Band-Aid is still getting mileage out of that jingle, too, and it’s a good thing it nabbed Manilow while it could. Around this same time, he'd written "Mandy," which would soon hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The jingle-writing days were over. Reach for the Skai Some celebrities are embarrassed by having had to do TV commercials on their way up fame’s ladder, but Skai Jackson isn’t one of them. In 2008, at just 8 years old, she sang the famous Band-Aid jingle while sitting in a sandbox. Earlier this year, Band-Aid invited Jackson back for a TikTok reprise of her original spot. Jackson donned a similar orange plaid shirt, fixed her hair in pigtails—and sat in a sandbox. In an interview with J-14 magazine, the actress called it “a full circle moment for me.” Wearing Shades Ourtone Band-Aids arrived in 2021. In 1955, Johnson & Johnson aired a TV spot featuring a Caucasian woman wrapping a Band-Aid around her finger as the narrator crowed about how the strips were “neat, flesh-colored, almost invisible.” Trouble was, that claim simply wasn’t true for tens of millions of Americans of color. Band-Aid did address this glaring omission in the market in 2005 with a multi-shade line called Perfect Blend, but dropped it owing to “a lack of interest at the time,” according to the company. In 2021, with the Black Lives Matter movement in its ascendancy, the company gave it another go with Ourtone—“a platform we created to ensure that we have coverage across all consumers,” Shahzad said. Earle Dickson invented adhesive bandages for his cut-prone wife (1). So novel was the product that early ads (2) had to explain the basics. By the 1940s, Band-Aid boxes were pharmacy famous (3). Innovating to stay competitive means Band-Aid regularly rolls out improved variations like Pro Heal, equipped with a gel pad for faster healing (4).

Perspective

Band-Aids Went to the Moon and Are in MoMA's Collection

How a New Jersey cotton merchant's invention patched up the cuts of billions

Create Your Free Account

Registration Includes:

Robert Klara

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications