Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Brands With Benefits


Are you using the sexy toilet paper?


We live in a society whose marketing and media are drenched in glistening sexuality. This can be evidenced in the luscious women gyrating in music videos; the buff, towel-clad man offering smug aftershave advice on the Web; and smirking old geezers soaking in side-by-side bathtubs on a beach. And by the way, why separate tubs? How does that work?

If we are to believe television, movies and advertisements, the world revolves around ensuring we are attractive enough and always at the ready to copulate with anything that moves. It's no mistake that this necessitates purchasing clothing, shoes, cosmetics, toiletries, weight-loss diets/supplements and/or plastic surgery. 

Television programs advise us on what not to wear, showcase the primitive mating habits of people at the Jersey shore and help us keep tabs on the how the stars are faring in their love livesas if such things are real news items.

Faced with this insipid stream of performance pressure, it's no wonder that there are record amounts of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs being popped liked candy.

Regardless of your take on all the well-orchestrated heavy breathing, sex sells. That means as long as even the faintest trace of libido throbs in the human cell, advertisers will be clamoring to associate their brands with our wafting pheromones. 

Are there any limits to the selling power of the mating dance? So far, it boasts a pretty comprehensive track record:  jeans, shoes, jewelry, perfume, toothpaste, hair growth tonics, cars, tropical vacationsyou name it. How far can this lunacy go?

I am throwing down the gauntlet. Here it is: Dear swaggering brand team on Madison Avenue, let's see if you can "go all the way!" I challenge you to develop a sex-based campaign to sell hemorrhoid cream, bed bug extermination and/or assisted living facilities. Anyone who answers the challenge will have their work posted here. It would make for interesting viewing and raise the phallic bar on American marketing gone wilding.

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