Last week Metamucil unveiled a new ad campaign (WSJ story here - sub. required) designed to encourage women to consider their "inner beauty." No, we are not speaking of compassion or intelligence or a desire to make the world a better place. We are talking about "guts" (their word, not ours) and how by regularly using Metamucil, women's guts can become "haute, haute, haute," according to the fiber laxative's print ad campaign. Which, by the way, does not include any reference to constipation or laxatives because that would be too, well, unpretty. Watch the TV ads and the spinning, smiling women don't give you any clue as to what the product they're hawking actually does. It reminded us of another infamous 1980's campaign that used saccharine mother-daughter vignettes, often staged in cars driving through rain, to encourage girls and women to regularly use Massengil to combat that "not so fresh feeling." What they failed to mention was that overuse of their product could lead to bacterial imbalance and infections. Which may be a reason we aren't treated to those particular ads anymore.
We understand the desire to reevaluate the marketing of a lagging brand to increase sales. We also understand that fiber is, generally, a good thing - although, to put it delicately, unless you "need" their product, you don't really need their product. What we don't get is why companies still believe that ramping up the pressure for women to consider every single centimeter of their bodies, both inside and out, as an area to scrutinize for potential flaws (and hopefully purchase their unnecessary product to "fix") is a smart way to market. Yet another trend from the 80's that shouldn't come back.
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