Writers enjoy the thrill of creating that delicate balance of a word well placed, a paragraph well crafted. Marketers thrive on it, financially. It’s all in how an ad is worded that means success or failure for a product.
Take the common bath pouf, or poufy as many of my female friends like to call it. It’s just a ball of plastic netting, scrunched together to become the greatest bath invention since heated water. By squirting a dime-sized blob of liquid soap onto a wet poufy and squeezing, hundreds of thousands of tiny bubbles emerge to create lather thick enough to cover your entire body in sweet scented suds. The name “pouf” evokes feelings of luxury, of elegance, of France.
My son’s poufy is a bright cheddar yellow-orange with a duck’s head on one end and cute little flipper feet at the other. Yes, it was bought a few years ago when it was appropriate for a child to have such a juvenile poufy. But now, the duck is dingy and my son is ten. I told him a short time ago that it is time to get him a more manly looking poufy, maybe something in a Transformer black or bright Lego red.
Last night while shopping for teacher gifts in the lotion and body wash aisle, my son noticed something in the men’s section.
Jere: (pointing to something black and red) Mom, is this a man’s poufy?
Me: (noticing that the poufy was black and red) Yes.
Tim: Except that men don’t call them poufies.
Me: (looking at the label) Well, let’s see what they do call them. Aha! It is the Axe Detailer Shower Tool!
Can you believe it? THE DETAILER SHOWER TOOL! Yes, that delicate balance of a word well placed. A marketers dream. A man’s reason to never have to use something girly.
Shower tool indeed. A poufy by any other name is still a poufy.
Oh come on, guys will call it a "scrubber" and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteNo guy would be caught dead trying to use three words when one will do.
Daisy: So you don't think that one word would be "poufy?" :)
ReplyDelete"Shower tool" sounds kind of ...hmmm...risque? Scrubber it is!