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I’m a big reader, and it’s actually become an uncontrollable reflex. I’ll scan say, a BART station, and sometimes commercial slogans and messages pop into my mind faster than I realize where I read it. Then I have to re-peruse the walls to see the origins. Damn marketers. Got my attention even if it was to check and make sure these were slogans and not intrusive thoughts as my deteriorating mind. Advertising is a brutal field these days as they try to claw their way into an oversaturated atmosphere. Where else can an ad be slapped that isn’t already plastered over?
This month I find myself both amused and insulted by…tampon wrappers. Oh, yes. That is indeed what I said. Not a topic of conversation one ever decides to spend time upon. Run away not if you must. A quick glance before tossing something into the rubbish bin and my brain caught the phrase “You’re a take-charge kind of girl!”
Exclamation point and all. Geez, do these people in marketing and packaging have nothing better to do than come up with motivational mantras for tampon wraps? Am I a take charge kind of girl? What if the reader were in fact, a simpering doormat of a girl? I wouldn’t be having a cycle at all if I were a “girl” now would I?
What in hell else is there in this box…?
“Focus, focus, focus” On what, may I ask?
“Keep your mind and body flexible” well, I agree with that, that’s what yoga is all about.
“Get off the bench!” I did not realize I was on a bench. Nor a fence.
“Go for the win” but I’m in the loo right now…
“Go for your personal best” again, I’ll set a new personal record once I get out of the loo…and stop reading toothpaste tubes and packaging.
“Life is a sport…Play to win!” well, that seems awfully vague.
“Persistence pays off” what, is that a message for constipated people or something?
“Stop Stressing…start focusing” Hmm. Without a worthy thing to focus upon one just creates stress I think.
“Win or lose, play fair” OMG I needed my tampon to teach me about the golden rule!
“Ready for even the toughest challenge” WOW if this product can make me THAT tough I need to buy a dozen more…
“Celebrate a bold attitude” this one is open to all sorts of potentially dangerous interpretations.
“Game on!” am I on TV or something?! What are we playing?
“All you can do is your best” well that doesn’t sound very motivating.
“Live out your dreams” well actually, that would require either illegal activities or hallucinagenic substances…kinda not down with that scene no more.
Or here’s my favorite in terms of unintended ridiculousness:
“Go play. Have fun. Trust your tampon.”
WHAT!? Ah hahaha. Trust your tampon? I’m sorry, I really preferred “The force is with you” or “Just keep swimming”, or even ‘Hakuna Matata.”
This is what I get for buying something dolled up and marketed for “active women”. I don’t know what you’d call my life half the time but active is definitely in there somewhere. I am mildly offended and feel like I am being condescended to by a hygiene product. But I guess it’s no less infantilizing than the way they put pink flowers and fruits and crap like that on everything sold to women. A sporty take charge theme is somehow preferable to the fresh-as-a-flower -yippee-skippee theme normally used in female ads.
It occurs to me, as an aspiring writer, that it was someone’s job to come up with all these little tampon-as-fortune-cookie tidbits of wisdom. Probably someone else’s job to approve them and then format it for the wraps. Gosh would that be like a dream job in terms of cush or would it make a self respecting writer want to shoot themself? (”Yeah, I’m a freelance author. My last gig? Oh, well, I, er…wrote copywriting for a commercial product. What was it? Uhm….”)
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