OMG! BLOOD in an American Tampon ad!
(click ad, via) NO, you don't understand, this is a historic advertising moment, people! OK, it's just a dot (or a "period," if you will) that's representative of menstrual blood, BUT STILL. After years of TV spot after TV spot using that ubiquitous blue liquid, Look! Red! In French ads, Tampax has already acknowledged the monthly presence of blood. As has o.b. in Switzerland with this creepy vampire ad. Meanwhile in America, it's dumb ad after dumb ad.Ad agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago.
Previous notable tampon ads:
• Sexist, via Italy.
• The Kotex Beaver, via Australia.
posted by copyranter @ 3:30 PM
28 Comments:
That's a pad, not a tampon. You XYs...
I KNOW, I was making a generalization for HISTORICAL purposes.
Pull yourself together Mr. Copyranter - there is no excuse to use "OMG" , ever!
Well I'll be hornswaggled, it's finally happened. The maze is a little weird, is menstrual effluvium supposed to wend it's way around the pad? Is there a Minotaur lurking off-camera somewhere? Been wondering for YEARS who expels blue liquid, so I'll be glad to see that image go. It looked like women peed toilet bowl cleaner.
Your excitement is palpable, Ranter. I hope you didn't wet your panties! I kinda like this ad actually.
Just when I thought my job on this blog was done... It's a historical moment, not AN historical moment. Your excitement must have been overwhelming.
No, your work is never done here. If I was Canadian, "an" would be maybe acceptable, apparently, according to never-wrong Google.
@Copyranter
Canadian or British (or Australian too). BUT you are a proud Amurikan, and so it behooves you to write like one.
that ll be japanese flag commercial :D
I always say "an historical." Must have read a lot of Britlit as a kid.
The little dot is ... progress, I suppose. I mean, the color is more or less right, but its tiny sanitized neatness is much wronger than the blue liquid.
I always say "an heliport," just to be consistent.
It's a "you are here" dot which conveniently enough are usually red. It's not like the red dot has no context besides being blood red. So it's really not worth getting your panties in a bunch about it.
LOGIC-SPEWING KILLJOY.
Sorry.
Meanwhile workers at the factory that makes the blue liquid usually shown filling pads start quietly updating their resumes.
Bilingual Tampon Directions. ENGLISH: Insert applicator. FRENCH: With parted lips, journey with me deep inside.
https://twitter.com/OffColourFilms
Is that dot really supposed to represent Aunt Flow? I interpret it as a little higher concept. It's a dot that will find it difficult to find a way out ==> Your period is safely locked in. Right?
Or am I just stating the obvious?
Putting aside a/an, I don't think "historical" means what you think it means.
You probably mean history-making -- which is to say, that it reverses historical norms.
I believe Kotex has used/did use a giant red dot in their commercials and print ads long before this.
While it wasn't positioned on the actual product, it was the first mainstream use of the color red in a menstrual product advertisement I can remember. So this ad isn't exactly groundbreaking.
Here's a press release I found from 2004 stating that the red dot started appearing in Kotex ads since 2000: http://investor.kimberly-clark.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=145567
I STAND BY "HISTORICAL."
@Anonymous 2:12--That's how I read it. The exits from the center of the maze are all dead ends. Very clever, and not that obvious.
--Swift Loris
@copyranter et al.: Should be "historic moment," not "historical moment"--as in "history-making," as Anonymous 3:33 suggests.
--Swift Loris
I think getting my period would be more exciting if it was blue.
Fuck, I can't believe I missed this!
Yes, it SHOULD be, as it was already pointed out, a HISTORIC advertising moment, NOT historical.
It's common for people to mix these two words - historic and historical - up. But copywriters or former journalists should not!
“Historic” is an adjective that means something important or influential in history.
“Historical,” on the other hand, is an adjective that refers to anything from the past, important or not.
William Safire once said something that might help you remember the difference: “Any past event is historical, but only the most memorable ones are historic”.
- Eng 205
...changing it to historic...
I don't think it is that big of a deal.
That blue liquid made me think we were invaded by aliens or that the blue meanies were coming.:)
Actually, I remember a pad ad from a few years back that used red and it *wasn't* a dot
I forget which product, but I thought it was vile, because it looked like a used pad. Periods are a fact of life, yes, but seeing a used pad isn't attractive, even if it's my own.
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