Wednesday, April 14, 2004
New look, same great taste
I'm not sure what sparked the conversation, but the other day I was talking with Susanne about how strange I think it is, sometimes, that products go to such drastic lengths to ease us away from our panic that their fresh, contemporary packaging may have somehow freaked us into thinking they've gone and changed the whole product. Case in point: they changed the design of the tube for your standard, everyday Crest original flavor paste. I don't think they've changed the box, just the tube. When you're looking at the product on the shelf, and it's in the same box it always has been, you're not going to know they've changed the tube. It's a little too late to ease the fears I don't have that they've changed the taste when I get home, open the box, and put it in the medicine cabinet. This is where the "New Look, Same Great Taste" thing seems like more of a marketing rule, like the warnings on the booze that caution one against operating things like a forklift after a drinking binge. You gotta put it on the label, and it's for the same people.
Nowadays the "New Look, Same Great Taste" rule always makes me think of what must be the most extended re-imaging campaign currently underway in the American marketplace--the transformation of the Brawny Paper Towel guy. Now, their product is touted as actually being better, so maybe it's not specifically the Same Great Taste, but I think you'll agree the idea is the same. They have a whole set of commercials you can view that focus specifically on showing towels with the old Brawny guy and towels with the new Brawny guy.
Admittedly, the old Brawny guy is a little due for an update. He does look a little Village People-ish, with that hair and that giant moustache. The new Brawny guy is supposedly more soft and sensitive, while still quite manly--it sounds like they basically sent the guy on "Queer Eye" for a little next-century re-programming.
I just gotta draw the line at the "Make Over My Brawny Man" contest you can currently enter your guy in. As the ad shows, men of all races can apply, so long as they are massive and wear those lovely t-shirts some call wife beaters. Brawny will take these dopey, unkempt monsters and transform them into models for romance novel covers who lack the opposable digits and concentration to fully button their shirts.
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