Sex Sells

I'm mostly immune to advertising whether it's on tv or in print or where-ever. I don't read fashion magazines in protest against the ridiculously unrealistic images they portray as 'normal' or desirable. It's all a lie. And I can chuckle at many tv commercials like some of the funny Geico ads (my 9 year old says they ALL are stupid and not funny), but they don't make me want to switch my insurance to Geico. I think I can safely say that no commercial (well, except maybe food ads when I've got the munchies) has prompted me to lay out hard-earned bucks for what it was peddling. Many commercials and print ads leave me thinking, "What does that have to do with anything?" Maybe I just don't 'get' it. I don't know.

But I have to admit that I'm not immune to snazzy packaging. I'm prone to impulse purchases if I see something that strikes my fancy. Sometimes the way something is merchandised and displayed can lure me into a purchase whether I need that item or not. (Incidentally, before I had kids my job was sales rep/merchandiser for L'Oreal Cosmetics.) This just happened at Walmart the other day.

I saw this display of new 'feminine' care products. It instantly caught my eye. I've never bought any of that stuff before, like FDS spray and what-not, because, frankly, I don't stink and it's not really healthy to spray chemicals on your foosey. But the packaging for these things drew me in like a fly to horse shit. There were a variety colors in both the cleanser and the moisturizer. It was the vaguely phallic shape of the bottle and the nifty way that the stuff squirts out as a white foam that really sold me. I just had to have one of each. I've never been one of those women who has to have a different cleanser and moisturizer for each part of my body. I use shampoo as a shower gel and vice versa. But I was so totally enamored with these phallic squirting bottles that I just had to have them.

Sorry for this crappy picture. I googled it trying to find a better one, but these products seem to be so new that they aren't available on any of the drugstore sites I checked. Maybe they are a Walmart-only product. Who knows? Now that Sam Walton is gone even Walmart is using the sex sells method of marketing.





"Beyond Fresh" by Intimates