This commercial for Uby-Kotex tampons features a woman, speaking directly to the camera, satirizing marketing conventions. “You can relate to me because I’m racially ambiguous”, she says, adding, “market research shows that girls like you love girls like me” and “Do all these angles make me seem dynamic?”. The final tagline text reads “Why are tampon ads so obnoxious?”. Thus, this ad is self-reflexive, self-deprecating and ironic, mocking tampon advertising and its conventions while simultaneously being an ad for tampons.

discussion

What insights into world of marketing did you personally learn from this ad? Do you normally think about these things when you see ads on television? Why or why not?

Do you appreciate the ‘honesty’ of this ad? How do you feel about this approach to advertising?

Would you be more or less likely to support this brand after seeing this ad?