Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Making the Curse Cool
Hey, girls, it's finally here. New, hipper tampons!
Say goodbye to Cathy Rigby on a balance beam. And ads of women dressed all in white whispering "fresh", "clean", and "odorless."
"I was in the feminine protection aisle, trying to sort through the endless sea of products, and I was floored when it hit me - not one box had an ounce of style. Where was the fun, the feminine flair?" said Barbara Carey, president and founder of Dittie, which is a unit of the Akasha Group in Orinda, Calif.
Ms. Carey said she decided at that moment to develop a brand of products that did not regard a woman's menstrual cycle as an ailment. "Kotex looked like Dr. Scholl's Wart Remover, Tampax looked like Lactaid and Playtex looked like Benadryl," Ms. Carey said.
This company's feminine hygiene products will now be packaged in hipper boxes, have cooler ads, and use younger women to push their products. They are mimicking advertising techniques of the soda and record industry.
I love it. Edgy tampon ads. Maybe they should go a step further, and make the tampons themselves edgy. Dye them black. Or add excessively long strings.
How about instead of concentrating on the packaging, we stopped bleaching tampons with cancer causing agents. Or removed the sales tax, just as there is no sales tax on essential food items. Just a thought.
Hey, girls, it's finally here. New, hipper tampons!
Say goodbye to Cathy Rigby on a balance beam. And ads of women dressed all in white whispering "fresh", "clean", and "odorless."
"I was in the feminine protection aisle, trying to sort through the endless sea of products, and I was floored when it hit me - not one box had an ounce of style. Where was the fun, the feminine flair?" said Barbara Carey, president and founder of Dittie, which is a unit of the Akasha Group in Orinda, Calif.
Ms. Carey said she decided at that moment to develop a brand of products that did not regard a woman's menstrual cycle as an ailment. "Kotex looked like Dr. Scholl's Wart Remover, Tampax looked like Lactaid and Playtex looked like Benadryl," Ms. Carey said.
This company's feminine hygiene products will now be packaged in hipper boxes, have cooler ads, and use younger women to push their products. They are mimicking advertising techniques of the soda and record industry.
I love it. Edgy tampon ads. Maybe they should go a step further, and make the tampons themselves edgy. Dye them black. Or add excessively long strings.
How about instead of concentrating on the packaging, we stopped bleaching tampons with cancer causing agents. Or removed the sales tax, just as there is no sales tax on essential food items. Just a thought.
