CSotD: And don’t call me “cupcake”
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Oh, lord, where to begin?
Matt Bors did this very funny cartoon in response to the bizarre marketing campaign for the 10-calorie version of Dr. Pepper. When I say "bizarre," I mean this commercial, which Matt has linked with his comic at Daily Kos, probably because, if you haven't seen it, you wouldn't get the point of the cartoon. And you probably wouldn't believe it anyway:
I think this is intended to have the tongue-in-cheek appeal of the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign, or the new Old Spice approach.
It doesn't.
The Dos Equis campaign works much as the old "What sort of man reads Playboy?" promos of the 1960s, or the Vitalis "Are you still using that greasy kidstuff?" spots that put Brylcream on the skids, by suggesting not that you become more "macho" — whatever that means — but that you grow the hell up.
I mean, who could possibly feel manly talking about "wingmen" after seeing this devastating riposte?
As for Old Spice, it might seem odd to create a campaign that specifically aims to sell aftershave to women, though anything is an improvement over their classic campaign that appeared to be suggesting "Don't worry, kid. We'll be back out at sea again in a few days."
Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign is smart for a reason we'll discuss in a minute, but Old Spice still faces the practical issue that it's hard not to be creeped out by a woman who says, "Oh, you're wearing Old Spice! My father used to wear that!" and yet doesn't get up off the couch and turn the lights back on.
Which we won't discuss at all.
The problem with the Dr. Pepper Ten approach is that it appears to be a response to commercials that suggest some products are purely for women:
There are a couple of issues with trying to reverse the "strong enough for a man, but made for a woman" approach.
The first is that Dr. Pepper doesn't have a feminized image to overcome.
It may have been advertised as a soft drink for dorks ("Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?") but those commercials were never terribly successful in countering the soft drink's well-established redneck image, typified by the old Lewis Grizzard joke about the guy walking into a store and saying, "Gimme a Dr. Pepper and a moonpie."
"You must be from the South."
"You think I'm from the South, just because I asked for a Dr. Pepper and a moonpie?"
"No, I think think you're from the South because this is a hardware store."
Dr. Pepper was already positioned, not just as a soft drink for men who drive pickup trucks, but as a soft drink for men who drive pickup trucks with the tailgate rusted off and a hound dog in the passenger seat.
If they wanted to sell Dr. Pepper Ten as a manly beverage, they should have hired Larry the Cable Guy as a spokesmodel, though it might strain credulity to have ol' Larry trying to explain why you need to get your calorie intake down.
Maybe Jeff Foxworthy: "Gimme a Dr. Pepper Ten and a sugar-free moonpie, 'cause these overalls surely do make my ass look fat!'
The other problem — the bigger one that I promised we were going to discuss in a minute — is that men really don't give a **** what brand soft drinks their wives bring home, and, if they're shopping for themselves, they still don't give a ****. They'll head down the soft drink aisle and throw just about anything into the cart.
Except for Fresca, which is for chicks.
And Tab, which is for chicks who think their asses look fat.
Oh, yeah, and that Weight Watchers crap, which you can't convince me that even Sir Charles and all those newly-slimmed ESPN guys are chugging down.
Now, I tried Dr. Pepper Ten one time, and it's good stuff. Tastes just like regular Dr. Pepper, but with fewer calories.
Reason I only tried it one time? It's not on a lot of store shelves.
Which means that, however effective or ineffective the commercials are, Dr. Pepper is wasting money putting them on the air, because men, even men who are somewhat motivated by trying to lose weight without losing their manliness, are not going to go from store to store looking for a specific soft drink.
That's not how men shop. In fact, you'd be smart to invest in a little of that expensive next-to-the-cash-register real estate to stack up a few 12-packs, because you can't count on them looking for it or even noticing it among the others.
They're looking down the soft-drink aisle scanning the shelves for the red sleeve of Coke cans, or the red-white-and-blue sleeve of Pepsi cans. Some of them might even be looking for the maroon sleeve of Dr. Pepper cans, but the damn fools who market this low-cal version went and changed the color scheme.
Come on, man. I drank the stuff and I liked the stuff, but I can't help these people sell the stuff if they won't help themselves.
However, this is a blog about comic strips and not about weight loss, so here's the REAL problem for a cartoonist: It's hard to come up with something to lampoon this whole thing that is sufficiently ridiculous that it outshines the ridiculosity of real life.
Shortly after he drew the cartoon, Matt discovered this, and posted it on his Facebook wall:
Which leads here, to the Butch Bakery, which says its store in NYC is temporarily closed, but promotes itself — and I swear I am not making this up — with a logo and tagline that says, "As seen on Rachael Ray."
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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