Pepsodent is an American brand of toothpaste with the minty flavor that is derived from sassafras. The brand was purchased by Unilever in 1942 and is still owned by the company outside of the United States and Canada. In 2003, Unilever sold the rights to the brand in those countries to Church & Dwight. History Pepsodent toothpaste was introduced in the United States in 1915 by the Pepsodent Company of Chicago. The original formula for the paste contained pepsin, a digestive agent designed to break down and digest food deposits on the teeth, hence the brand and company name. From 1930 to late 1933 a massive animated neon advertising sign, featuring a young girl on a swing, hung on West 47th Street in Times Square in New York City. This ad was re-created for the climax of the 2005 film King Kong and was featured in the original film in an establishing shot of Times Square itself. Following the acquisition of the Pepsodent Company by Unilever in 1944, sales of Pepsodent in the UK increased rapidly, more than doubling between 1944 and 1950. The company outgrew its original factory in Park Royal, and the manufacture of the product was moved to the factory of another Unilever-owned toiletry manufacturer, Joseph Watson and Sons of Whitehall Road, Leeds, in 1951. Pepsodent was a very popular brand before the mid-1950s, but its makers were slow to add fluoride to its formula to counter the rise of other highly promoted brands such as Crest and Gleem toothpaste by Procter & Gamble, and Colgate's eponymous product; sales of Pepsodent subsequently plummeted. Today Pepsodent is a "value brand" marketed primarily in discount stores and retails for roughly half the price of similarly sized tubes of Crest or of Colgate. Its best-known slogan was, "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" The product was discontinued in South Africa in 1974 but was revived in 1976 with a new ad slogan "Gets Your Teeth Their Whitest" featuring celebrity endorsers Rita Moreno, Steve Lawrence, and others. The popular slogan was also changed in South Africa to "You'll wonder where the dullness went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent." Pepsodent is still sold as a Unilever property in all markets except the United States and Canada. In Vietnam, Pepsodent is called P/S. In 2013, Pepsodent was ranked 201st among India's most trusted brands