Email I sent to Procter and Gamble

Time marches on, and change must happen. Gone are the days of yesteryear, when we smiled at our televisions as the good-natured grocer kindly urged shoppers to resist squeezing the Charmin. Of course they couldn't resist, but who could have? Those downy rolls of tissue beckoning like fluffy clouds of peace and tranquility were tantalizing enough that even the grocer himself found himself entranced to touch. Gone are those happy, innocent days, and with them, Mister Whipple's gentle smile. Also gone is the comfortable, easygoing way that consumers preferred to receive their advertisements. While I find your tounge-in-cheek campaign about "What bears do in the woods" amusing, I find that it lacks the same vitality and playfulness of Mister Whipple and his mischievous grocers, and while I feel that it fails to recapture that feeling, I feel that it also fails to catch the attention of today's consumer. In this age of instant gratification, consumers would prefer a more cut-and-dry approach to the way bathroom hygiene products are presented to them. Today's consumer is more pressed for time, and wants to receive the message quickly and clearly, with fast paced computer generated eye candy without the playful suggestiveness of a pastel toned teddy bear enjoying the morning paper atop a treestump. Today's bathroom tissue consumer needs my new slogan for your product:

"CHARMIN! It's WIPE-o-RIFFIC!"

This would be followed by a computer animated laser beam breaking through three dimensionally rendered dark plaster-like chips, which would fly apart as they were destroyed, leaving a shiningly sterile pink surface behind. This would then sparkle and make a "ding" sound. This approach has worked quite well for the toothbrush and razor industries, which use three dimensional CGI for nearly 100 percent of their ads to great effect. Please give this idea consideration in your future marketing strategy. Thank you for your time.

Their Reply

Hi Michael.

Thanks for sharing your reaction to our Charmin ads featuring the bears as opposed to our commercials that starred Mr. George Whipple. Our ads are intended to demonstrate the benefits of our product in a humorous and entertaining way. I appreciate your feedback, and I'm sharing your comments with the rest of our Charmin Team.

Thanks again for getting in touch.

Ruth
USA Charmin Team