The Listerine Effect

Over Christmas my seven year old niece gave me a run-down of the more grievous sins I commit against the fashion world on a daily basis. First on her list were my low-riding pants, my flannel shirts and my general misunderstanding of color coordination. At her age I wore the same shirt to school everyday. Every morning I would put on a fresh clean shirt, eat breakfast, and make sure my mom saw me in my clean shirt. When it was time to go I would quickly change into my favorite shirt, zip up my jacket to the very top, and leave for school. This was the routine for four months until my mother had parent-teacher conferences and my teacher gave me away.

Soon thereafter my mother started me on a rigorous hygienic routine every morning. I learned about deodorant, mouthwash, flossing and the importance of a good soap. I showered every morning before this routine, but the daily showers were now part of a longer routine that remains a strict part of my life to this day. Every morning I get up, shower with two soaps, shave once with a mechanical razor and once with a normal razor, clean my ears with q-tips, rub on lotion then deodorant, floss, brush my teeth and use Listerine mouthwash. The routine is so much a part of my life that when I did my Eagle Scout project I made hygiene kits for little kids in Africa. The elimination of bodily smells was a gift from me to poor kids, who like me probably wore the same shirt to school everyday.

Body odor is a fairly recent problem, developing over about the last hundred years. Before the 1880s deodorant wasn’t even heard of, but it didn’t become popular until the 1920s. Before that people only showered once a week, usually in anticipation of the Sabbath. Now we have an entire section of the grocery store dedicated to eliminating various body odors.

Upon reading this title you may at first be impressed to think I will give you details of the kissing I’ve achieved through my use of Listerine, the mouthwash. Although false, this idea is not entirely inexcusable. Listerine was in fact originally designed to clean floors, cure gonorrhea, disinfect cuts or scrapes, act as an astringent and even eliminate dandruff. It was only later given to dentists as a mouthwash. Throughout its time serving as various cures and cleaners it never achieved popularity, so the marketing department in charge of the advertising set itself to make a change. They began advertising it as a cure for bad breath, and by extension the lonely bachelor’s heart. The new ads featured beautiful women asking their friends, “Can I marry him in spite of his bad breath?” One scholar said, “Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis.” Advertisers refer to this type of marketing as “selling the need.” The point is to shift the consumer’s paradigm in such a way that they realize this is the product that leads directly to their happiness. In the case of Listerine the direct happiness was popularity and marriage.

Once a person eliminated their halitosis issues, and found someone to celebrate it with, De Beers was there to market the next step. They decided to market their diamond engagement rings to future brides. If love should last forever the ring representing that love should too; and as we all know, “A Diamond is Forever.” Diamond-less engagement rings are rare these days, mostly because men are expected to represent their love with a few karats of forever.

As we start turning over the stones of our present circumstance we find that advertisements are shaping the world we consume. Marketing research is designed to do three things, identify the consumer, satisfy the consumer, and keep the consumer. It limits us to one of our most basic functions in its role as a profit-oriented science. The more or less recent developments of an ancient science are changing our world whether we see it or not. In essence we now have persuasion down to a science, an equation, a formula, a plug and chug concept. The market sells us the need, satisfies that need and keeps that need coming back. And they call us the consumers.

The average person in their early teens to late twenties will see around 5,000 ads every day. Of those ads, only two or three will be persuasive enough to work their way into the brain of a consumer, and only a handful of those ads will lead to a purchase. At best advertising is an investment in the human psyche, building towards that day that when the investment pays off in a purchase.

The movie Fight Club is the story of an insomniac who defines his life with Ikea furniture, asking himself which piece of furniture best satisfies his needs. When he can’t sleep he stays awake all night watching Ikea infomercials and creating what he calls his “nest.” Eventually he co-engineers a system of fight clubs that develop into a global project to destroy all the credit records in the world, eliminating the class system that has developed through materialism by leveling every consumer at zero. This is an extreme reaction.

My reaction is less ballistic. When I look for shoes I ask myself if I’m willing to pay an extra $80 dollars for shoes with a big check mark on them, or whether the soaring eagle on the front of my shirt says I am aware of the clothes I’m wearing. Part of the reason I started wearing flannel is there are no brands to display or advertise, but this is far from sticking it to the marketing man. They know I exist, and they have a scheme to get me to buy their clothing. Whatever I do I fall into the marketing trap, but I have to wear clothes, and I have to smell good, and I have to get a diamond engagement ring. I don’t have to ask myself what Ikea set defines me as a person, or whether the Nike check marks on my shoes mean I can run faster or jump higher.