I’m really sorry for you. I know you’re working hard. God knows it can’t be an easy job, considering the fact the everyone grows up conditioned to the constant barrage of advertising coming at us from all directions, so I know you have to move heaven and earth just to get through to us, just to get us to focus our eyeballs for thirty seconds and actually pay attention to what you are trying to sell. So yes, I do feel for you.

It’s just…

That ad I just saw? Yes, that one. That’s the one I’m talking about.

It’s just…

Excuse me. Please allow me to be blunt.

The phrase “genital herpes”?

I’m sorry. You lost me RIGHT THERE.

Each word on their own? Not so bad. “Genital”? Who doesn’t love to talk about something genital? Hell! No one! EVERYONE wants to talk about something genital. And “herpes”… admittedly, a harder sell. But it’s a pretty short word, a mere two syllables… you can elide right over it. [cough]“Herpes”[cough]. It’s sort of… cute.

But “GENITAL HERPES”?

Nope. Sorry. Bam. Dead in the water.

I DO NOT CARE THAT YOU ARE SELLING GENITAL HERPES MEDICATION. IT’S STILL NOT GONNA WORK.

It’s the principle of the thing here.

I think you gotta get together, all you advertiser folks, just figure out amongst yourselves what new phrase you are going to use in place of “genital herpes” — some phrase that isn’t used for something else — and then just let the rest of us know. Something like “Danish Camel”… or “Retrograde Maple”… or… I don’t know… “Des Moines, Iowa”. Anything.

And then you retire “genital herpes”. As an advertising phrase. Forever.

BECAUSE YOU DON’T TRY AND SELL THINGS USING GENITAL HERPES AS YOUR HOOK.

NOT EVEN GENITAL HERPES.

IT JUST WON’T WORK.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 19th, 2006 at 10:05 pm and is filed under advertising, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.