Everyone in marketing knows that advertisers are struggling to stand out in a crowded field of commercial messages. One way to get noticed that several marketers seem to be taking advantage of is to
create ads that viewers find disgusting. Take a recent effort from Adams Respiratory Therapeutics for its Mucinex medicine in which a ball of mucus makes its home in a person's lungs. Then there's a
spot for Procter & Gamble's Pepto-Bismol that features a jingle about heartburn and diarrhea. The general consensus appears to be that even though these ads are kind of gross, they apparently work.
"There are a lot of good commercials ... but having said that, do we really remember the brand name and what it's all about?" said Mike Bernacchi, a marketing professor at the University of Detroit
Mercy. "Any commercial that makes its mark and can be remembered gets over its first hurdle." Adams says the mucus blob is a big reason sales of the medicine, which uses the slogan "Mucinex in, mucus
out," were up 75 percent to $63.2 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31. And according to a recent
USA Today Ad Track survey, 23 percent of respondents considered the ads very effective,
compared with the industry average of 21 percent. "Mucinex is a really effective product, and when it's taken in the correct dosages, there's nothing like it," said M'lou Arnett, Adams' vice president
of marketing. "But the change in our sales when we turned on advertising indicates that the Mr. Mucus advertising resonates with consumers.
advertisement
advertisement
"
Read the whole story at Detroit Free Press »
