THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507190033
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
KERRY SAYS:
Maybe the heat's making me a tad cranky, but if I see one more celebrity posing with milk on her face I'm going to have a cow.
I don't know about you, Dave, but I am thoroughly nauseated by these new advertisements in all the national magazines.
You know the ones: a famous person is photographed with a nice thick glob of dairy product on her upper lip.
Yuck.
I learned two things about being photographed when I was a child: First, set down your drink (OK, that came later). Second, wipe your mouth. These people are professionals; surely their mothers introduced them to the joy of damask.
I try not to look at these ads, but I think I've seen Lauren Bacall, Isabella Rossellini (You can't really blame her: Lancome ditched her for a younger model and she's probably scrambling to find work), Joan Lunden, Miss America and Kristi Yamaguchi all looking like they'd never seen a napkin.
Do you know anyone who dashed down to the 7-Eleven for a quart of milk as soon as they saw Lauren Bacall's hairy upper lip dripping with it?
But a whole lotta people must feel like I do - that these are repulsive ads.
What's next, toothy celebrities smiling with poppy seeds stuck between their teeth, courtesy of the poppy seed council? Bearded guys with suds dripping down their hairy faces, brought to you by the beer board?
Enough already.
The last time I had such an adverse reaction to an advertising campaign was when Grape Nuts decided that the best way to promote their cereal was with a television commercial showing a couple of yuppies holding their cereal bowls about two inches under their chins. Then these gluttons began chomping and slurping their way through breakfast.
That was about 10 years ago, roughly the same time I last ate Grape Nuts.
Is it just me, or do lots of people find these advertisements repellent?
The milk ads make the Preparation H campaign look downright dignified.
DAVE SAYS:
Hmmmm. Well, there's one thing in there I'd agree with, my friend. The heat is indeed making you cranky. If you were a toddler, I'd check you for rashes.
Lighten up on milk, lady. They're having a tough time selling the stuff these days. The low-fat fitness craze has left an awful lot of cows out of work. And those Guernseys can be real hard to cross-train for a new career.
I remember a milk campaign from when I was a kid: ``Milk. It builds strong bodies 12 different ways.''
Come to think of it, maybe that was a WonderBread ad. Either way, the effect was the same: Your body found 12 different ways to hang out over the belt of a pair of pants that had fit pretty well just the week before.
If you're all charged up about taking on Madison Avenue, Kerry, why don't you do us guys a favor and get them to drop those commercials for ``special'' female products? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for a guy to be sitting in the living room with his mom and his 80-year-old aunt when two women come on the tube and start chatting about their heroic struggles against itches and yeasts and all sorts of other unmentionables?
At least they used to be unmentionable, back when society was polite.
I'll agree with you, it's not very polite for the ladies you mentioned to be parading around in ads with milk on their lips. But I'd rather see them smiling through a milk moustache than hear them talking about things that none of the rest us should be listening to.
As for Lauren Bacall, well, you'd better watch it, She-Said. Bacall is an all-time favorite of mine. If I thought it was really the milk that left her looking that good at 70, I'd be bathing in the stuff. And I'll bet you'd have a full-body milk moustache of your own. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TV's Joan Lunden sports a milk moustache in a dairy industry and
campaign. Kerry's verdict: Yuck.
by CNB