Vegetables in my bread

Hey! You! Skin care product marketing people! You’ve got a product on the market for an old face like mine. Don’t try to pull the wool over my baggy eyes by using a 16-year-old girl in your advertising. I’m not stupid. I know there isn’t a snowball’s chance in H E double hockey sticks I’ll look like a 16-year-old if I use your product. I didn’t get this kisser full of bags and wrinkles when I was a teenager. I worked hard for them. If you want to sell some miracle product, guaranteed to “keep them guessing,” get woman who’s “been there and done that” to trowel that goop on and show me what she looks like in the morning. You can’t fool me. I know what a person my age looks like. We don’t look like teenagers.

Hey! You! Gastric banding surgery people. So, the cartoon character gal went on a diet. She lost two pounds. Then she was invited to a baby shower and a birthday party. She gained three pounds. Life’s a kick in the arse, like that. Why the H E double XL sweat pants would you suggest a gastric-band to a person who gained three pounds. Your advertising is purely incredible. Such a procedure like intubation is intended for people who have a history of being overweight or obese and for whom diets did not work. Holy crap! Do you gastric-band people know how offensive it is when you suggest a three pound weight gain is a good enough reason to spend $10,000 plus on a silicone band? Do you really think a desperate dieter is hearing anything more than, “It’s a quick way to dump the pounds”? Come on. You’re not a weight-loss program, gastric-band. You’re an invasive, potentially risky surgery. Don’t get me wrong, gastric-band people, I believe there’s a place for your product but not wrapped around the stomach of a person who went to a baby shower and gained three pounds.

Hey! You! Green container yogurt people. Ya you, the belly shimmying yogurt people. BL Regularis, aka Bifidus Actiregularis, Bifidus Regularis, Bifidus Digestivum, Bifidobacterium Lactis are just marketing names generated by the Dannon/Danone company. Your slick campaign was designed to make us think your yogurt product is going to get our innards running like a bullet train and push all that bad fat out, and you do this by cooking up a name for a probiotic that occurs naturally in yogurt? Who the H E double-image hula dancin’ gals do you think we are? BL Regularis, my queasy guts! Yogurt, plain and simple, didn’t need to be tinkered with to be good. It doesn’t need flavouring, sugar, stevia, fruit slurry, inulin, gelatine, corn starch, fructose or some creepy marketing word to do what yogurt does best. Nutritionally speaking, yogurt doesn’t need a marketing additive to make it do a better job. It’s got protein, calcium, riboflavin, vitamin B6 and B12 and that magical bacterial culture. Buy the plain stuff kids, add fresh fruit or real vanilla if you need a flavour. Save yourself a few bucks ‘cuz you’ll never look like that skinny dancing gal by chugging back a few cups of green container yogurt.

Hey! You! Vegetable Bread people. Again with the teenaged models, this time oohing and cooing over a sandwich. And it’s okay to each the sandwich because it was made with vegetable bread! Those gals would no sooner eat a sandwich than scarf back a chocolate bar. I laugh out loud every single time this commercial is aired. Imagine not having to worry about eating bread or missing out on your vegetables because Vegetable Bread had a one half-serving of vegetables in two slices. I’m thinking, no more salads for me, I’m just going to toss a couple of pieces of bread with a scoop of mayo and away I go. Geez, it’s not like there isn’t a web browser at my fingertips to find out what the H E double orders of vegetable bread has in it. Seriously, carrots and pumpkin are all you have to offer for my half-serving in two slices. And, two slices of veggie bread equals 220 calories. I’ll bet dollars to donuts (not vegetable donuts) those models, in real life, wouldn’t touch your vegetable bread with a ten-foot butter knife. Carbs, vegetable bread people. Models know where the carbs are hiding. Come on. I wasn’t born yesterday, I know if I ate a great big, raw carrot I’d be gnawing my way through thirty calories, tops! That’s a lot of herbage.

I love television advertising. LOML and I spend more time watching the commercials and laughing at the ridiculous scenarios than we spend on the actual television shows. Very entertaining. Next up, “Who put the sex in the corn chips?”

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca