Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Does this actually appeal to people?


Bursting with 3,109** breath strips **minimum number in this tube

Its interesting how in the past couple of years, the variety of toothpaste available has increased dramatically. Rather than basic minty toothpaste being marketed by several brands, there are now many flavours and varieties. While still quite affordable today, it seems that toothpaste will soon become a designer item, with more expensive brands marketing lavish flavours.

I can see the appeal of different flavours of toothpaste, since toothpaste does have a fairly strong flavour (at least the mainstream concotions, sweetened with saccharin do), and teethbrushing is done frequently. It seems that companies are trying to find new ways to market their brand, either through claims to whiten, strengthen enamel, prevent cavities, etc. (all of which are reasonable things to expect), but also it seems that more frivolous marketing techniques are being used. For example, I purchased a variety pack of items a couple months ago, which came with a lot of products at a very reasonable price. I recently started using the toothpaste that came with the pack. This Colgate MaxFresh toothpaste is 'infused with Dissovable Mini Breath Strips'. In my experience, my teeth always feel clean and my breath fresh after I brush my teeth. I don't really feel the need to find to find ways to make my teeth cleaning experience more 'minty' and 'fresh', but somehow current marketing techniques are trying to press this idea further. It doesn't really make sense to me to put breath strips in toothpaste. I mean, breathstrips are designed for people who want fresh breath when they are out and can't (more realistic to say don't want to, or can't be bothered to) brush their teeth. This is a less effective way to freshen your breath when you may not be able to brush your teeth. So why is this new variation on the breath mint being added to toothpaste? It is completely unneccessary, and I would find it hard to believe that it actually would improve the quality of the toothpaste. The label also sports many terms and claims trying to prove its superiority in breath freshening ability, such as "Experience a Whole New Dimension of Freshness", "WITH 50% MORE BREATH STRIPS", and my favourite, the jumbled collection of words that seem more to me like they are advertising an action movie:
MaxFresh
WHITENING BURST PEPPERMINT
EXPLOSION

To me, infusing already minty toothpaste with breathstrips seems as unnecessary as adding coffee flavour to coffee. Also, the fact that this toothpaste now has 50% more breathstrips tells me that they first came out with toothpaste that contained breathstrips, and either people for some reason didn't think there were enough of the little minty strips, or Colgate just needed to find something to market their product further and took it upon themselves to improve it.

So I will stop my annoying cynicism here, but will explain why I am so critical. I find a lot of ads actually make me less inclined to purchase a product, because the ad is so rediculous, and I don't know how they could think it would possibly appeal to me. I don't understand how it could appeal to anyone, quite frankly. I also think that the state of humanity in general is greatly underestimated most of the time, and we allow ourselves to be lowered to a less civil and intelligent level. Lets give people the credit they deserve, and address them as they deserve. Assuming that everyone has bought into mindless entertainment, is apathetic and has pre-determined values is an insult to humanity.

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