Like Kryptonite To Stupid
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Have you seen it? It’s not in full on their website, but it’s essentially Tylenol employees telling you how much “love” they put into their product and how much they care. Really? Shut up.
In a Tylenol commercial I want people in lab coats telling me how they engineered the drug to stop headaches. Don’t try and sell me warm fuzzies, give me science and headache cures.
Oliver Willis
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This is part of the whole trend toward corporations trying to convince us that they are “just folks”, not colossal profit-driven economic entities. Cisco is “the Human Network”, etc. It’s what made NPR’s April Fool’s Day spoof underwriting from the ‘Soylent Corporation’ so funny: “Soylent Green, it’s people.”
Now when I see this Tylenol ad, I scream at the TV “Tylenol, IT’S PEOPLE!!!!”
Yes, I saw that commercial the other day. It was stupid. I suppose they’re trying to differentiate Tylenol from the much cheaper generics, but it would work better by emphasizing “careful” or “meticulous” or “competent” rather than “loving.”
My mother would prepare Tylenol for me more lovingly, but I’d rather have professionals do it.
they NEED us to think of tylenol this way, with those marketing-dept warm fuzzies. Acetaminephen is cheap cheap cheap. That’s what tylenol is too, indistinguishable in a lab from the generic. Tylenol just costs more because of the marketing, oh, and the profit magrin. This we all know deep inside….
While I agree with the sentiment you expressed, Oliver, I understand why they have to do it.
“This is part of the whole trend toward corporations trying to convince us that they are “just folks”, not colossal profit-driven economic entities”
But you see, they aren’t “just folks” nor are they “colossal profit-drive economic entities”. At least, neither is a wholly accurate depiction. Those huge corporations are run by real human beings with the same motivations and feelings we all have. There are also literally thousands of employees who believe in what they are doing.
So considering the unfair PR campaign against them, abetted by certain politicians, it seems only logical that they expend some of their own resources on a counter-PR campaign.
While I haven’t seen this particular commercial, it probably has a lot more to do with how potentially toxic acetaminophen is than anything else. I’ve noticed a couple of their ads trying to strike a balance between “our stuff is the good stuff, so buy it and use it often” and “but be careful, because it can cause organ failure.”
i really really hate that commercial too!
Tylenol is acetaminophen, period. There is no “engineering”. The drug is the same as any generic brand.