Rambling Rhodes

Talk About toilet Paper

Over the weekend, I was sent out to purchase toilet paper, a substance which was dangerously depleted within the household: a couple more spins of a single roll were all that remained, which clearly is not enough.

As with any trip to purchase a single item, the shopping sojourn morphed into a multi-purchase experience. As I wandered the aisles, I realized we needed cat food, and then I realized we needed Diet Pepsi. All of which, of course, led to the uncomfortable experience of going through the checkout aisle with a 24 roll batch of toilet paper, a big bag of cat food and a 12-pack Diet Pepsi, which no doubt had the cashier wondering what I had planned for the weekend.

Whatever my weekend proclivities may have been, this post is about toilet paper or, more specifically, the marketing campaigns intended to sell toilet paper. As I perused the immense selection of hind-wipe, I was primarily struck by the images emblazoned upon the packaging.

Now, it's well-understood in the marketing world, if you want to sell your product, babies and puppies are the way to go. The human psyche, apparently, is unable to resist the purchasing allure of babies and puppies. If cigarette companies could somehow craft an ad campaign that featured babies and puppies smoking, with their arms/paws around each other's shoulders, you'd have 100 percent of Americans lighting up.

toilet paper companies are, apparently, well aware of the psychological draw of babies and puppies. Kleenex Cottonelle, for example, has gone down the puppy route, utilizing a yellow lab puppy that inexplicably has the voice of Zach Braff from the T.V. show "Scrubs." Even though puppies have no earthly reason to take an interest in toilet paper beyond being a chew toy, the Cottonelle puppy is unnaturally concerned about the cleanliness of the assorted behinds of its human overlords.

Angel Soft toilet paper, on the other hand, has decided a strategically-placed baby is the ticket to moving their product although, according to their Web site, they're not opposed to firing out a puppy of their own. Again, like puppies, babies don't have a particular burning need for toilet paper (at least not for a couple of years), so their affinity for toilet paper--and, if Angel Soft is to believed, babies like to be literally blanketed in the stuff--is a tad circumspect.

Perhaps most inexplicable of all is Charmin, which has been wistfully pining for the days of Mr. Whipple. Charmin has eschewed both babies and puppies and has opted, instead, for bears. Specifically, Charmin has opted for cartoon bears and, perhaps intent on capitalizing on the deep partisan divide in our country, they offer up a blue bear and a red bear--the red bear being "Ultra Strong" and the blue bear being "Ultra Soft." If the Charmin Web page is to be believed, both the red and blue bears truly like each other (although they seem somewhat suprised by the existence of the other), even though they're clearly divided.

Personally, I tend to opt for what's the least expensive when it comes to my toilet paper needs, so babies, puppies and bears are little more than silly distractions, as you can see. However, if I were to come up with my own toilet paper advertising campaign. . .

I'm thinking an image of Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker," except he's on a toilet, and above his head, in a thought balloon, would be a baby, a puppy and a bear cub, playing with a roll of toilet paper.

Hey, I'd buy a 24 roll package of THAT.

UPDATE: For no particular reason, I thought I'd share what it must be like to write a Nick Coleman column:

Posted by Ryan at March 31, 2008 10:19 AM | TrackBack