Not bad taste - just bad thinking [03.05.05]
By Jared Read
A couple of months ago, I went on holiday to India. As well as the usual sightseeing, sunbathing, and stuffing myself with curry, I spent a total of four hours in the dentist’s chair.
Frustrated at being unable to get an NHS dentist (or even see a private one without waiting three months for the privilege) I decided to try out a spot of “medical tourism”. Work that would have cost me a grand in the UK set me back around £200, a saving that was enough to pay for my holiday itself.
Why, then, in the face of such a much-publicised shortage of dental professionals, have Listerine taken the creative strategy they have?
I’m sure you’ve seen the TV ads, where bored dentists who haven’t got enough patients while away the hours playing golf or generally dossing about in their surgeries. It’s all paid off by the endline, - Listerine. Good news for everyone except dentists. There’s also a print campaign, where dentists are shown touting for work on the high street. Yeah, right.
I can just imagine the clunky thinking behind this campaign. Agency planner writes a brief with a proposition along the lines of: “Listerine reduces tooth decay and therefore frequency of trips to the dentist”. The creative team then interpret this as “Listerine means less work for dentists”. .
Now we all realise the value of dramatisation in bringing alive a non too exciting product fact, but it still has to be within the bounds of belief. And I’m sure no one believes that a mouthwash can lead to mass dentist idleness. Especially those poor souls who have spent several days camping outside the doors of newly opened NHS dentists, or even braved the drill several thousand miles from home.
All advertisers want work that has impact and standout. But brilliance with believability is something that’s difficult to achieve. If you get it wrong, it’s all too easy to come up with an idea that’s just too hard for consumers to swallow.
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