Monday, November 05, 2007

Foul Taste Is Part of the Cure

A classic Canadian OTC product goes south...

From the Wall Street Journal:
When drug makers come out with new cough medicines, they typically tout characteristics such as extra strength or improved flavor. But when Novartis starts marketing a Canadian cough mixture in the U.S. today, it will focus on a different feature that it hopes will help the product stand out from the crowd: the medicine's foul taste.
Buckley's ad campaign embraces the foul taste of its cough syrup as a selling point.

Made from camphor, pine needle oil, menthol and Canadian fir balsam gum, Buckley's Cough Mixture has been available since 1919 in Canada, where it has become what Novartis calls the country's "best-selling and worst-tasting" cough medicine. It doesn't contain sugar or alcohol, which other brands use to dull the medicinal flavor.

Novartis, which bought the Buckley's brand in 2002, hopes to convince consumers that the bad taste proves the syrup's effectiveness. "It Tastes Awful. And it Works," is the tagline of the television, print, radio and Internet ads designed by Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi in New York. ...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This spot is the best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcAP2SmMyD0