pure essential - another wimp print ad!

what a disappointment, again! this is now a 2nd execution of their "anti-safeguard" strategy and all the aggressiveness from the teaser ad is still gone. it looks like they did get a CDO on their previous teaser ad that featured the doctor, but in this one, even a semblance of the competitiveness in the teaser ad is not here. you can get a CDO, but there are ways to deliver the same kind of punch and competitiveness but staying within the AdBoard (its different now?) guidelines. reading this ad, they did not even make an attempt to do so!

also, could not understand what's the point of doing an advertorial approach. sure, an advertorial approach allows you to say a lot of things, but the many things they said here does not carry a punch. so, what's the point? too much on laxa, not much on the product, not even enough sale.

i thought the skin dryness as caused by too much use of anti-bacterial soap story is best delivered in the traditional brandsell advertising format. it has excellent news value and will strongly call attention.

i liked the teaser ad approach because it was very product-centric which was the core strategy of pure essentials. but this was too much celebrity/personality, very little product. the teaser ad featured a doctor and that can explain why there was a lot of product and efficacy talk (actually, scare tactics), and laxa is not from the medical field. that can also explain the "softness" of this ad compared to the teaser doctor ad. but this ad is not just softer, it's empty.

nowhere in the ad do they talk about the dangers of using bacterial soaps and its dry skin effect. there is no mention of safeguard's two anti-bacterial active ingredients. they do say "harsh ingredients" in soap but that was not linked to safeguard or anti-bacterial AIs. (they could have just said something like "i now realize the soap i have been using for many years may bne causing dry skin". that's a freebie for the pure essential creatives.) even in laxa's "hygiene guidelines" (last paragraph) they just mention "use the right soap", no mention or allusion to safeguard. they simply gave up on the strong points they raised in their teaser ad.

i would even say this laxa ad is off strategy. they can still deliver the same product-centric and efficacy strategy of the doctor teaser ad, but in the words and experiences of laxa. it can still be competitive and still sounding like laxa said them. no attempt, even feeble ones, were done along the line.

i wonder if this laxa print ad is the sustaining brandsell ad campaign of pure essentials. i think it's worthless. as predicted, this ad confirms what i said previously - J&J and it's pure essentials ad agency do not have the brains or balls to wage battle with safeguard.

this pure essential laxa ad is another WIMP ad. again, did the creatives become lazy? its WAWAM!