Gripe.
Dear Berlex (Makers of Yaz birth control:)
You don’t know me by name, but you’ve been a bit of a thorn in my side for some time now. I recently acquired cable television, which has opened by eyes to the ever-present world of commercial advertising, and it seems that each and every time I turn on the TV, I’m subjected to your extremely banal advertisement for YAZ birth control.
Even though I am a regular purchaser of your other product YASMIN birth control, I lack a real familiarity with your advertising practices heretofore. The only ads I’ve seen for the pills I take is the occasional modest one-page print ad with shades of lavender, some purposeful age-indeterminate woman smiling modestly into the distance, conveying the impression that the consumption of your birth control has made her thoughtful and introspective. I have no real problems with this ad or those tacit claims, though I have failed to notice a marked difference in my own level of introspection since I began taking the pills. It’s your commercial for the newer, apparently infinitely hipper, YAZ birth control that I’m writing to take issue with.
Allow me a brief summary. You present the viewer with a trio of gorgeous, rather scantily clad young women in a posh bar setting, they’re out on the town for a little bit of girly fun. They’ve got their hip jewelry on, their hair is carefully disheveled, they’ve got cocktails, they’re making love to the camera. Naturally the talk turns to the subject of the prettiest girl’s birth control method, which is the new YAZ. She extols the many virtues of this medication, and encourages her friends to try it, and the girls are crying out and giggling delightedly about them, at which point she reveals that she is actually a doctor, thus conferring an air of medical authority on the whole proceeding.
I don’t know if it’s even possible to fully describe the ridiculousness of this commercial, or my incredulousness that no one in your organization has noticed it yet. In the first place, there is no way that woman is a doctor. She looks about 19; unless she’s the premature love child of Doogie Howser she’s not anywhere near old enough. And why do you have to try and make the name of the medication all trendy with the stupid name, YAZ? That is the most tired marketing strategy, to add a stupid Z to the name. What does it even mean? It doesn’t convey anything about what you’re trying to sell, not in the slightest. You need to build your reputation and your customer base on the actual merit of the product, not with these dingbat spokeswomen. You could call it “Anti-Baby Tablets” and women would still buy it as long as it didn’t make them gain 12 pounds and grow a hormone beard.
Don’t you have any women in your marketing department, Berlex? Women would know that other women don’t go out to bars and try to push brands of birth control on their friends. For the most part, women in bars are too busy trying to scope out potentials to test the birth control with to be discussing the brands in detail.
Berlex, here’s my advice: Make a commercial that hocks your pill in a straightforward, authentic way that will appeal to real women. You could have two or three women walking together, and maybe one could say,
“You know I’m thinking of switching my birth control. Mine is making me all wanged out. What do you use?”
And the other girl could be all, “I use YAZ. I like it! I know the name is stupid, but it’s pretty good stuff.”
And the first girl could say:
“Well have you ever gotten pregnant while taking it or did it make you grow a hormone beard?”
And the second girl could go:
“Nah.”
First girl: “Sweet!”
Third girl: “Let’s go get some cheese fries and watch Grey’s Anatomy.”
THE END (copyright by Jessica Dunton, all rights reserved.)
Sincerely,
Jessica Dunton
PS - If you’ve actually made it to the bottom of this letter, I would sure appreciate you looking into a price cut on the older, less trendy YASMIN. At this point, I think a baby would be cheaper than what I’m shelling out to Rite Aid every month. Thanks in advance.