Hey, this is the exact same concept from a classic ad I
remember from my childhood: “If you could see your bad breath.” We all used to
make fun of that ad back in Massachusetts during the winter when our breath
would turn to steam and we could all see it. I can’t remember what mouthwash
that was an ad for anymore (Scope? Listermint? Not sure.), but it’s exactly the
same idea here: visualize the unseen bad thingy you’d want to avoid having.
(Why is the ad I’m referring to not up on YouTube? It was one of the ones that
people talked about the most, like: “That little itch could be telling you you
have dandruff” for Head and Shoulders Shampoo. Also one of those ‘make people
insecure so they’ll buy the product’ ads I am generally against; but that
mouthwash one was so funny, I give it a special dispensation for its intent.)
So while this spot is fun, I hope everyone knows it’s hardly
an original concept. And, in fact, its concept is borrowed from one of the
great ads from yesteryear (somewhere around the late 1970s).
But I have to take issue with the tagline used here:
“Because it’s never just a cough.” Sometimes coughs are just coughs, and this ad is not only misleading, but accusatory
in tone towards people who have non-contagious coughs. Apparently acid reflux
can lead to a chronic cough, but that’s not contagious, so this ad, while not
exactly lying (an acid reflux cough is caused by acid reflux, so technically
it’s not just a cough), is making coughs look like they’re all infectious,
which they’re not; maybe most are contagious, but not all of them are. You have
to give me the fact that the perception of that tagline’s statement is that all
coughs are contagious, even if they have phrased it with plausible deniability.
If only cough syrups really worked well on coughs. Try
Tessalon Perles for an actual cough suppressant. They’re prescription, though,
and not sure why, but they work, which I have found over-the-counter cough
syrups don’t.
Here’s the cough cloud commercial:
