Sometimes I find it a tad bit ironic that I work in marketing and at the same time I am the biggest sucker for marketing propaganda that ever walked the planet. I fall for it all– new packaging, new improved taste, better than before! I write stuff like that every day and yet I fall for it every time.

Today I was suckered in at Target. I stumbled upon the hair spooj aisle and since I vaguely remembered that I was nearly out of the green snotlike stuff I use to do my hair I decided that I should pick up more. As I scanned the millions of bottles looking for the little tin of green snot stuff, I happened upon a bottle filled with blue mystery spooj.

The bottle is funkily shaped and you get the blue mystery spooj out of the bottle via the top that makes it look like dish soap. Yes, I love this sorta stuff.

It?s called Molding Maniac– though I think they should call it blue mystery spooj. It?s got a nice grungey (you know where all the As and Os fill in) typeface on the front. Nice packaging job all around.

Now I?m sitting here reading the back of the bottle.

Molding Maniac
Unleash your wild side! Spike, twist, flip [yay no serial comma] or go funky. Feeling a little tamer? Then go for body, texture and lift. Special Effects Molding Maniac holds awesome curls, adds incredible texture, and molds even the most daring styles. Anything is possible with the dynamic styling flexibility of Special Effects Molding Maniac. Life’s too short to be tame. So get wild — we dare you!

To Use: Apply a small amount through wet or dry hair. Style as you dare. User more or less depending on thickness of hair.

You know, someone gets paid to write this stuff. Someone sits in a cubicle and frets about what to write for the back of this bottle. Someone, who might be just like me, wonders if they will be able to pull off that ?go funky? line.

Someone got paid to write this copy. They got paid to route it and have their coworkers dicker over the ?Life?s too short to be tame.? If it were my office, it?d have gone a little like this:
?I don?t like that ?Life?s too short to be tame?.?
?Why??
?It?s too negative. We don?t want people to think their life is gonna end soon. Be more positive. And that ?we dare you.? That?s gotta go. What if people don?t want to be dared??
?What if they want to be dared? What if they are looking for something in their life to challenge them? That?s the customer we want, we want the risk takers.?
?I dunno. People might not be ready for hair products that are so daring.?

Then the writer probably went back to their cubicle cum jailcell and cursed the very existence of product managers.

Ok, must breathe.

Maybe it?s easier to write hair care propaganda. I write software propaganda and that conversation above is my life. I have that conversation about 15 times a week.

I wonder if Special Effects is looking for any copywriters.