Inspirational Sayings and Beautification Attempts

A friend of mine sent me an email today from a woman going off on a new marketing campaign by Kotex. Apparently, the feminine hygiene manufacturer thought it would be nice to insert “helpful” hints on their products. They advise women to drink more water during their menstrual cycles to keep fresh, and other annoying shit like that. This woman penning the email didn’t like it, and neither do I.

Kotex isn’t the only product line now offering inspiration and advice on items that should have neither, and lately I’m wondering why every marketing department has turned into a bad version of Stuart Smalley. Starbucks is also engaging in this five cent psychobabble with messages on their disposable cups. Now instead of just staring lazily at the warning that my coffee is hot (duh!), I have to read inspirational messages from bleeding hearts who feel that what they have to say is actually something someone might give a rat’s ass about. Today it was a woman from Oregon whose hobbies include gardening and reading. She spent the entire length of my Venti-sized coffee basically echoing the “do unto others as you would have done to you”, only with a lot more incoherency that included a traffic reference. I’m sure she thought she sounded intellectual.

It was bad enough when Alaska Airlines years ago began putting Christian bible verses on little cards inside their in-flight meals. Thankfully, I’ve never had an Alaska Airlines meal, because I don’t want to be preached to, and I hate airline food. They fuck up simple things like cookies, so you can imagine what havoc they would wreak on a sandwich.

The inspirational messages are only a part of it, because I’ve also noticed efforts to beautify products that really don’t need any aesthetic improvement. Case in point; about three weeks ago, I had to slog to the store to purchase my regular supply of maxipads. I chose my usual brand and noticed that another brand had begun putting large, colorful flowers on the packages of their products. Why! First off, to the makers of pads: you don’t need to make the packages pretty or take out large advertisements in magazines or on TV. because women will find your product whether they want to or not. Your product isn’t attractive, helpful, or desired; it is a necessary evil that every female is required to use until menopause.

I thought I was safe with my plain-colored package of pads, until I got home and realized that on the face of the thin, waxy sheet covering the adhesive, they had printed little daisy flowers. This was annoying, but not a big deal, until my toddler saw it. Right now we are attempting to potty train her, so on occasion, we let her observe hoping she will follow suit. When she saw the neat flowered paper, she thought it was the coolest thing. In fact, I couldn’t pull it out of her hands to throw it away.

I left the bathroom and proceeded to make dinner, until that moment while I was shredding the cheese when I realized it was too quiet. I went upstairs to find Rachael pulling the pretty little pieces of waxy paper off of all of the pads in the package. I know the goal of the maxipad company was to increase revenue with this beautification move, but I hope this isn’t what they had in mind.

Now, all of this beautification just ticks me off. I don’t want my money to look like rainbow currency, I don’t care if the packages of flour and sugar have smiling children on them, and I really could give a shit less if the whole grain rice I purchase has large pictures of wheat on it. I’m a minimalist at heart, and this entire attempt to make the world more beautiful by infusing large, colorful art into places it shouldn’t be, like a package of maxipads, is just mind-cluttering. Whatever happened to simple and elegant, or for that matter, just simple?

If marketing people were really interested in making the world a better place, they would keeping their inspirational slogans and ridiculous art to themselves, and instead, lobby their companies to manufacture their products in countries that abide by the Kyoto Treaty. If I want to read something inspirational, I’ll pick up a book, and if I want to see something beautiful, I’ll go to a museum. In the meantime, leave my disposable coffee cups blank, and for fuck’s sake quit printing flowers on my maxipads!