Brand New! With Extra Cynicism!

Watching TV tonight, I saw an ad for this fall's hot new product. Babies!

Apparently, Johnson & Johnson is so desperate to sell more No More Tears shampoo and baby powder, that they're now selling reproduction like it was a new car. They trumpet the strong emotional bond between a parent and child as something that MUST be experienced then at the end, slide in, "Oh, and you'll need a buncha J&J product for that little miracle." I mean, I can't even imagine how this brand strategy came about.

"Thompson! Numbers for Q4 are down! We need to rebrand!"

"Umm...what if we encourage people to reproduce and create more consumers?"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. What about overpopulation? Or a family who can't afford another mouth being drawn in by the ad? I mean, yeah, Coors encourages football parties to sell more beer but, you know, this seems awfully cynical to me. Pitching the good aspects of babies just to increase sales?"

"Look, do you want to move product, or do you want to fuck around?"

To hammer the cynical message home even further, the ads direct you to baby.com! They're selling human babies! They should at least counteract the message by pointing out that having 2 many baby isn't always that great.