The History Behind Maxwell House’s “Good to the Last Drop” Most
likely over the last several decades, you have heard Maxwell
House‘s famous slogan for their coffee, “Good to the Last Drop.”
The slogan has actually been around since 1917, but it wasn’t until
the 1930s that Maxwell House started to explain where the slogan
came from, possibly due to the fact that Coca-Cola was using the
same slogan at this time. According to Maxwell House lore,
President Theodore Roosevelt was visiting Andrew Jackson at
Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, on October 21, 1907. During this
visit, he was served Maxwell House coffee, and he reportedly said
that it was “good to the last drop.” Owners Leon T. Cheek and John
Neal heard President Roosevelt’s bold statement, and they adopted
it as their corporate slogan. It’s a nice story, but it’s one that
has never been historically proven. Local press in Tennessee did
cover Roosevelt’s visit, and one paper did cover the story
regarding Roosevelt’s response to the Maxwell House coffee.
However, according to that source, Roosevelt said, “This is the
kind of stuff I like to drink, by George, when I hunt bears.”
Maxwell House has since then said that the slogan was originally
written by Clifford Spiller, a former president of General Foods.
Yet, in 2009, the coffee company reverted back to its original
claims that the slogan came from Roosevelt. They even ran a
commercial depicting President Roosevelt retelling that famous
story. Whether it’s true or not, it’s a fun piece of legend for
Maxwell House, and it certainly explains why they haven’t departed
from their slogan in nearly 100 years.
Explain the meaning of this slogan, "Good to the Last
Drop," using the concepts of the utility theory.
Answer
Utility theory explains why consumers consume certain products
and how their preference for the product changes with each
successive units of consumption of the product. Diminishing
marginal utility is a very important concept in utility theory.
According to diminishing marginal utility theory, the marginal
utility derived from consuming each successive units of consumption
of a particular commodity keeps decreasing. For example, when a
consumer consumes the first of coffee or the first cup of coffee,
he/she derives maximum utility. However, the next sip or cup yields
less utility than the first sip or cup. Moreover, the third sip or
cup yields even less utility. Therefore, after certain numbers of
sips or cups of coffee, the person may yield zero or even negative
utility.
The tagline of Maxwell House’s “Good to the Last Drop” intends
to mean that the marginal utility of consuming this coffee will
never diminish and even the last drop of coffee with yield enough
utility for the drinker to keep on having the coffee. Therefore, we
can say Maxwell House’s coffee ‘defies’ the law of diminishing
marginal utility!