In 1997, the Nickelodeon TV network teamed up with Oral-B to create “oral care kids will choose to use.”

Sands of time:
Nickelodeon was famous for popularizing tactile experiences that combined sight, sound and touch. The hourglass timer may not be as famous as the network’s iconic green slime, but it fits right in with the brand’s 1990s heyday.

GETTING KIDS TO BRUSH long enough has always been a challenge. In 1997, this nifty package addressed that problem with Rugrats-branded toothbrushes and toothpaste by Oral-B. But the pièce de résistance is the genuine hourglass brushing timer, which is so much cooler than a modern iPhone brushing app. “It was the most fun I ever had launching a product line,” says Sherree Lucas, Oral-B’s product manager in charge at the time. When we caught up with her recently, she recalled that “the children’s toothbrush category was very competitive. Specialty packs with value-adds [like the hourglass timer] helped us get endcaps at Walmart, Target, et cetera, and we loved to create them.” The partnership catapulted Oral-B to No. 1 in kids’ toothbrushes, which was enough to earn Lucas a big promotion: She went on to help launch Oral-B’s landmark CrossAction toothbrush globally in 1999.