 A drink called Ensure was first marketed by Ross Laboratories in 1973.In the 1990s, Ensure and other nutritional drink products like Mead Johnson's Sustacal and Nestlé's Boost and Resource brands were fiercely competing to capture market share among healthy adults.In 1996, Ensure had sales of about $300 million and accounted for 80% of protein supplement sales; Abbott spent $45.4 million to advertise Ensure during the first nine months of 1996, around 70% more than it spent during the same period of 1995.