Buy Our Diapers, Moron
I don't know if I have any of these commercials on tape, and I am in no mood to hunt for one, so you're not going to get a screencap. I'm really sorry... okay not really.
Baby products. I pretty much hate them all. Toys are okay, but everything else is aggravating. There are several product groups. You've got the commercials for the lotions and shampoos, usually Johnson & Johnson, where they depict baby care as this tranquil, blissful experience that involves cleansing your baby under a moonlit sky, an act that brings not only you and your baby closer together, but the whole world. Ah, love. Then there are the commercials for Formula & Food. These are the ones Jane Seymour spokeswomaned a good five, six years after her last kids were born. I do hope her kids had moved past baby food by that age, but who knows. Maybe they're unique. And finally, there are the Diaper & Training Pants commercials. Generally the rule is that the bigger the diaper being sold, the more annoying the commercial. For the younger set, leakage is discussed. Leaking diapers are very, very bad, but by now, we all know this, and it's just something you come to expect when viewing a diaper commercial. But when they're trying to sell diapers for the two-and-three-year old kids, things get decisively weird. This is where we tend to get images of toddlers carrying newspapers into the bathroom, and children dancing around singing about how they know how to pull up their own pants. Perhaps it's the singing that gets to me. Now would also probably be a good time to add that I hate the commercial where the children of four, five years old are giving potty training advice to the younger kids. Some of my friends think this is cute. I do not. Cute kids singing about Oscar Mayer is fine. Cute kids talking about bathroom habits is not.
So anyway... Luvs. By far my least favorite of all baby commercials. I know by now that Huggies have an elastic waistband and are super-absorbant and that Pampers have a cute baby on the box, but Luvs' biggest claim to fame is that they are cheap. Not cheap as in made of recycled magazines, but cheap as in Affordable for the hip, cool couple with 2.3 kids who might choose to purchase the diapers for their babies.
Luvs has had several commercials over the years, but they're basically the same. They show parents running around chasing a couple of toddlers who have a million toys and who fall down a lot and get dirty. The ads have a voiceover saying something along the lines of "When we first had kids, we went out and bought the most of expensive brand of diapers. But then we realized kids aren't porcelain dolls, they're rugrats just waiting to get dirty. And so. Now we buy Luvs." If your mind is Jell-O-ey enough, you'll kind of see the logic in the proclamation, which is then followed by the Luvs motto: "Live and learn, and then get Luvs." Which, loosely translated, means: "You're a stupid wasteful idiot if you don't buy our brand. Oh, go ahead and be stupid, you new stupid parents, you. But soon you will see how totally retarded you are and you will convert to our brand and then laugh at those who have not. The sooner you join the Luvs cult, the better!"
Or perhaps it is only I who has interpreted their motto this way. Who can say?
Effective? Maybe so.
Overplayed? Not really.
Obnoxious/Loud Music? No.
Sexist/Gender Stereotyping? More or less. Damn happy young female/male middle-class couples.
Extreme cheesiness? No.
Repetition of annoying catch phrase or tune? No.
Use of talking animals or other things that shouldn't talk? No.
Use of disturbing images? No.
My rating: 4/10
Leave a message in the guestbook to comment on this article. :)
(c)2004 AlligatorJuice.com