| Clean
Living in
the Great Midwest
September 30, 2005 An Open Letter to GlaxoSmithKline, Inc: Okay, I swear to God, I am not a total sicko…or at least not any more of a sicko than your average 28 year old male. I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time pondering the subject your firm has forced me to tackle in this letter. I do, however, feel that it should be brought to your attention that at least one person, who happens to be totally out of your target demographic, noticed the complete and total lack of respect on your part for a line that has been a consistent performer for many years. Oh, you’ll throw the product up on the shelves, but you won’t give it any love on the website. I implore you to right that wrong… I was practicing an exercise that is designed to improve my copywriting skills, in the hope that I might one day grow up to be a modern day Jason Headley, or perhaps even get Mean Dr Lily to return my e-mails. The exercise consists of me thinking of the absolute hardest possible product to write copy for and then designing a campaign around that product. When I am finished with the product, I look at its official website and compare what the professionals have put together with my stuff. I’ve done portable toilets, laxatives, cemetery plots, Michael Bolton records and even colostomy bags (check out the sleek new line of bags designed for Summertime fun!). Most of the time – I am crap when compared to those pros. Sometimes, I really think my copy is slightly better. And once…only once did the official product site not exist at all. You should be ashamed of yourself GlaxoSmithKline, Inc. To the product itself – there’s no reason to be embarrassed, GlaxoSmithKline, Inc., we’re all adults here - and we understand that sometimes a person just needs to crack open an 8 fl.oz plastic flip-top bottle and apply the Purified Water, sodium laureth sulfate, magnesium laureth sulfate, sodium laureth-8 sulfate, magnesium laureth-8 sulfate, sodium oleth sulfate, magnesium oleth sulfate, lauramidopropyl betaine, myristamine oxide, lactic acid, PEG-120 methyl glucose dioleate, fragrance, sodium methylparaben, sodium ethylparaben, sodium propylparaben, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone and D&C Red #33 in the hope that it might cleanse and refresh their external vaginal area. The field of economics’ first and oldest rule of supply and demand has proven time and again that folks are willing to put down hard-earned money in order for you to cleanse and refresh their external vaginal areas. This is a fact that you should be proud of…and not try to hide by offering nothing more than a dead link at massengill.com. Further, you should most definitely stop being so humiliated that you exclude the Massengill line from your list of over-the-counter products. Just because you ran out of ideas after, “Mom…what do you do when you feel ‘not so fresh’?”…and action shots of people playing tennis with their sparkling clean external vaginal areas - you should not abandon the product. For decades, people have come flocking to you, GlaxoSmithKline, Inc when they experience a dirty vagina. Hold your head high! Massengill is douche!! (Remind me to write that one down) It was at this point that I really got to thinking…If you’re going to aggressively promote your Horlicks (did you know when a person reads the label of this product out loud, it sounds like they’re saying “Whore licks?”) line with a website, it’s the least you could do to plug in my copy at the Massengill site. All you have to do in order to gain ownership of this solid-gold copy is to pay me the low, low sum of…some money. Before you publish it to the site, you might want to read it over for, you know…facts. Anyway, here’s a sample of what I came up with: The Massengill Site: Lead: Massengill will make your external vaginal area smell Massengood! History: Much like its close relatives penicillin and cheap nylon, Massengill was invented by accident. It was a sweltering day in late July 1926 when Brooklyn Housewife Mary Bernard, despondent over her odoriferous external vaginal area, decided to make some soup and take her mind off of things. About halfway through the recipe, Ms Bernard became trapped in the throes of tears and sadness and spilled the soup of Purified Water, sodium laureth sulfate, magnesium laureth sulfate, sodium laureth-8 sulfate, magnesium laureth-8 sulfate, sodium oleth sulfate, magnesium oleth sulfate, lauramidopropyl betaine, myristamine oxide, lactic acid, PEG-120 methyl glucose dioleate, fragrance, sodium methylparaben, sodium ethylparaben, sodium propylparaben, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone and D&C Red #33 on her external vaginal area. Much to her surprise, her external vaginal area felt completely cleansed and refreshed! A feminine hygiene miracle was born! Okay, that’s all you get for free, but as you can see, it’s pure Massengold…and there’s more where that came from. Just give me the word, and I’ll deliver. But you need to act fast, because the people over at Vagi-Gard have a new non-staining line that’s just begging for my stellar copy. I look forward to hearing from you. Love, JRM |
