Getting up close and personal
By Penelope Whitson,
Disclaimer: I know little about the mechanics of marketing or advertising. I once did a marketing project for a book on cycling and my free gift with purchase idea? A bookmark. My classmate’s? A mini bike repair kit.
Despite this failure on my part, I consider myself perfectly suited to make judgements about advertising and marketing because I am a consumer. A buyer. A shopper. A purchaser of things I do not need but am easily convinced that I probably do.
On a recent jaunt to
China, my chums and I spent quite some time trawling the aisles of the local
supermarkets. As so often happens, we gravitated towards the condom section and
found a brand called Jizz-bon. (Chinese-French for semen is good?) Another with
the line, ‘Protects your head’. These are gold. I now wish I’d purchased them.
To, ah, show people. Displayed casually on my coffee table, perhaps?
However, these boxes of protection got me pondering. What makes us buy one brand over another? Because it’s not like you see heaps of advertising for condoms unless you’re at Family Planning. Can you still get 144 condoms for free when you visit the nice folks there? Given the lack of advertising, I’m guessing it’s the packaging or the price that makes up our minds. How many bangs for your buck versus the potentially mind-blowing experience a pricier brand will bring you and your genitals.
For the purposes of research, I spent some time on the Durex website, which tells me I can buy ribbed! Dotted! Flavoured, coloured, thin, thick, warming, tingling ... it has never occurred to me to buy condoms online before but given many people probably find standing in front of the condom selection at New World a little embarrassing, it might be the answer.
Other packets are festooned with small-waisted, long-legged, scantily clad cartoon super warrior women. Who are these aimed at? Computer nerds for whom such women are more than just a final fantasy? Women who see themselves as super warrior maidens? Am I a super warrior maiden? Will these make me feel like one? I’ll get back to you.
Continuing my research, I asked the nearest male, my brother, fountain of knowledge that he is, for his thoughts on penile protection. Apparently it’s all about the smell afterwards ... hot rubber or stink-free? Non-latex, baby. Which led me to the Ansell Skyn non-latex condoms online – however, I am, of course, not very happy with how they’re spelling that. And I guess that’s advertising for you – it’s personal. I reject items because of how they’re spelled. For others, it’s the smell. No doubt you have your own reasons for refusing to purchase certain products.
The problem with doing all this research at home is that I can’t see the back of the boxes. Is it reasonable to ask in this age of obesity how many calories a flavoured condom has? Am off to the supermarket. For research, you understand.
Comments
Travis Cottreau
Nice post!
The self-service check out lines at Neworld have no doubt increased condom sales tremendously!
What makes me buy one condom brand over another? Seriously, I just stick with the first brand I ever bought. As long as it's still working, why muck with it? How much difference can there actually be?
Hmmm… this makes me want to make a change.
Truly-Belle
calories from condoms!
Ann
Having worked in a supermarket for four years, I don't find buying condom embarrassing because I know the checkout person does not give a damn. They're unlikely to be judging you because they probably hardly noticed.
After all, they've spent up to eight hours passing barcodes over a scanner.
However, the best advertising-fail when it comes to condoms I observed on Oriental Parade a while back. A guy wearing a Durex t-shirt leading a toddler by the hand. So many possible messages tied up in that.
Lisa Simpson
I used to work on checkout back in the day, and I worked with a particularly disgruntled girl. (If you've ever worked on checkout, you'd understand why.) She got sick of people abusing her for things that weren't her fault, so to retaliate, she memorised the barcode number from the most expensive packet of condoms she could find. They happened to be ribbed, or flavoured, or ribbed and flavoured, or something. And whenever someone abused her on checkout, she would quickly key in the number, hit enter and subtotal, and they'd be charged for the condoms, without realising it at the time. But of course the person would be too embarrassed to come back later and claim they'd been charged for condoms they hadn't actually bought. Particularly when it came up DUREX RIBBED FLAVOURED NAUGHTY TIMES CONDOMS on the receipt.
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