Beware of Buyer 9 – How much is enough?
(First published on 09/23/2009 12:37 AM; http://abs-cbnnews.com)
Unlike most people, I’ve always been fascinated by ads, and sometimes instead of tuning out, I actually sit down and focus more when the commercial break comes on. For me, ads are fun and educational, at least the first time you see them. When I’m abroad, I pay special attention to the TV not just to watch the shows, but to see what passes for advertising in that country.
I look for two major reasons. One, for the creative aspect. Making a commercial is the equivalent of writing a short story. Contrary to common sense, making something short, and making it good is much harder than making something long; the ability to convey many ideas and concepts and be stylish and artful at the same time is easy when you can do it at leisure, like in a 1000-page novel or a two-hour movie. To do the same thing in a three-page short story or a 30-second commercial is way harder to do by far.
The second reason is I like to find new ways to be effective in conveying the message, whether it be to sell a world-changing idea, or to sell panty shields. Being in the business, it’s of special interest to see how everyone’s doing (or not doing) it.
So now I’m going to ask you guys what seems like a totally unrelated question: How much toothpaste do you put on your toothbrush in the morning?
If we are to believe our TV ads, to make our breath fresh and our teeth sparkling white, we’d need to put a generous squeeze on that tube and create a long glossy couple of inches of paste stretching the length of the toothbrush, ending in a artsy upturned flourish at the end.
But think about it—how much is really enough?
A colleague of mine mentioned he’d gone to a workshop where they were taught how to make the most of their resources, and he mentioned that you actually just need a tiny amount of toothpaste to do the job. Just a little dollop, a tiny pea-sized lump on your brush can just as effectively make your breath fresh and your teeth sparkling white.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never bought into that consumerist myth of more is more. Instinctively, I knew I didn’t need that much damn toothpaste, and my whole life I had been squeezing pea-sized dollops from the tube. Not just because I wanted to scrimp and save and draw out as much use out of a tube of toothpaste as I can, but I felt a whole caterpillar-long amount was really excessive. And, I suspect, a lot of you do too.
Of course, the ads would show the pretty model squeezing out as much as she can fit on the brush. Traditionally, they’ve been squeezing with abandon since TV ads were invented. Of course it’s a no-brainer to realize they do this not only to make the shot look more attractive, but in the process increase consumer consumption, and subsequently increase sales. More is more.
So much for truth in advertising.
As far as the amount is concerned, according to the Chicago Dental Society, there is an actual word for the proper measurement. It’s nirdle, which means a very thin layer of paste roughly the length of the bristles on the toothbrush. A nirdle should be just right for that sparkly white teeth and fresher fresh breath.
Most resources say, in reality, toothpaste is just an aid in dental hygiene, and for adults, a simple dry brush and rinsing with water would be just as effective cleaning the teeth, while children and older people would do better with a wet brush. Additionally, just using dry or wet brushes without paste would reveal potential problem areas such as bleeding at the gum line, locations of which would be lost in all that foam in the mouth.
Admittedly children could be coaxed to brush more easily with the various pleasant fruity tastes of the toothpaste marketed for them (and more often than not would make them swallow rather than spit). But without supervision, children would tend to imitate what they see on TV and put that much on their brushes. The copious amounts shown in ads are certainly too much for kids, and their inadvertent swallowing would introduce excessive amounts of fluoride into their young bodies.
They can argue that toothpaste may have some cosmetic use as an abrasive whitener or breath freshener, but the abrasion would eventually erode the tooth enamel, and the alcohol in the freshener would dry the mouth. They can say it functions as a convenient delivery system to add fluoride, but since nowadays we get fluoride from drinking water, it’s largely superfluous. Additionally, research shows a lot of the other additives tend to be harmful in the long term.
In point of fact, it’s not even clear that toothpaste is as essential to dental hygiene as much as a toothbrush and water are, much less the question of how much toothpaste to use.
And the misleading ads aren’t confined to dental products.
You see models pour generous quantities of shampoo into their hands and massage it into their hair for gloriously rich, foamy lather. Looks great on TV, right? In truth, the recommended amount of shampoo is a tablespoon’s worth for long hair, even less that for short. Mix the amount into a bit of water and lather it into your hair. After shampooing, also know that using two teaspoons worth of conditioners is more than enough, otherwise it’ll weigh your hair down.
Two teaspoons would also be the right measurement for mouthwash when you gargle, not half a glass, and remember that next time when you’re at the beach, a shot glass worth of sunscreen should be enough to cover your whole body, not half the bottle.
We’ve all grown up with these ads on TV. Generations of us have gone through life accepting them as gospel truth because no one’s told us any better, so we never give them much thought. If we let them, manufacturers and advertisers will of course always try to get away with whatever they can. It’s the nature of the beast. I think it’s up to us to say when enough is enough.
You can write to Adel at Adel_Gabot-CTL@abs-cbn.com, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/adelgabot.
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