I look at most advertising campaigns with a certain degree of disdain, this is especially true for television advertising, but nothing annoys me more than commercials for stuff like toothbrushes/toothpaste, deodorant and other types of personal hygiene products. These types of ads always seem to go that extra mile when it comes to bullshit – I mean, how high-tech can a toothbrush actually be? You’d think with all the technological advances that have been made in the last hundred years or so that we would’ve nailed the toothbrush thing already, but someone always seems to be hard at work developing the next big thing in oral care.
Apparently just brushing your teeth doesn’t cut it anymore, so unless you want to look like this
then you need to rush out and buy the Ultrasonic Laser Plaque Obliterator ASAP. Ugh. It’s obviously not just toothbrushes either, but toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, soap, you name it. It looks like these companies abandoned the whole concept of research & development a long time ago in favor of some hotshot marketers and now we all get subjected to the aftermath. I don’t know about most people but when I need a new toothbrush I look for something cheap that doesn’t require batteries or to be plugged in (the whole mixing water and electricity thing really doesn’t appeal to me) and that has those little rubber bristles on it too (I like those). I’m sure most people are capable of making an informed purchase without seeing 3D simulations of alien-like plaque monsters swimming around or a demonstration of a toothbrush buffing a tomato.
I almost forgot the most annoying commercials after the toothbrush ads though – razors. I’ve actually been thinking about getting myself a straight razor so I can avoid getting ripped off every time I need to buy replacement heads for my Sensor Excel (who comes up with these names anyway?) but the learning curve and possibility of grievous injury have delayed that. Anyway, I find the razor commercials terrible on so many levels, and in some cases I’m almost offended as a man by the horribly cliche marketing gimmicks that they use. How many blades are we up to now? 5? I’m pretty sure I saw a commercial with some razor that has 5 blades on it, for maximum smoothness or some crap like that. The “sonic” gimmick doesn’t just apply to toothbrushes either, apparently making pieces of plastic and metal vibrate does wonders for your facial hair as well. Do they really pay people to come up with these ideas? Pretty soon we’re going to be seeing 10-bladed razors with built-in MP3 players that shoot shaving cream right onto your face with a tiny little cannon.
I think I tracked down the commercial that started it all:
See that? 51% cleaner!
