What Can YOU Do With Whipped Cream?
Marketing — and especially copywriting — is the awesomest job in the world. (Well, unless you suck. In which case, you’ll be really poor.)
In marketing and copywriting, you can change the future. You can alter people’s perceptions, change their behaviour, and make them do things they had no intention of doing before being in contact with you or your words. (Kind of like a cult leader in that way, come to think about it. I’m changing my passport occupation to “cult leader”. So much cooler.)
Anyway, I was on IM with another copywriter I know. She’s working on a campaign right now for a company that makes confections. She’s working on taglines. What kind of confections, you ask?
Whipped cream, baby.
(Imagine having a job where you can play around with taglines for a whipped cream company. Now imagine that you do that in your pajamas and that people sometimes pay you $200 an hour. And they ask me why I do what I do. Jesus.)
A company selling whipped cream is probably the perfect client. If you can’t sell whipped cream you are in the wrong fucking business. Think about it. There are two things you can do with whipped cream and both of them are really, really fun. This shit sells itself.
Frankly, when it comes to marketing, all a whipped cream company needs to do is stay out of the way. Let the people buy it and don’t fuck it up. There you go. Mission accomplished.
Anyway, so my friend and her friends get drunk and brainstorm taglines, because all the good taglines come when you’re loaded. She comes back with some mildly racy, barely there double entendres and the client says they can’t do anything remotely dirty.
“Why not?” asks my copywriter friend.
“We’re selling to housewives and working mothers. They don’t want racy.”
Um, excuse me?
I have an idea. Let’s take the largest target demographic in the United States and put them into one of two categories. We’ll take one set and force them to stay in a house with nobody but very small children and a Swiffa for company and conversation. We’ll take the other set and shove them into a pair of pantyhose, force them to go out to a job they hate and then come home to the aforementioned small children and an exhausted husband. Then we’ll make them so busy they don’t have time for sex.
I challenge you to find me a demographic who wants racy more than housewives or working mothers.
Racy is the only thing keeping them from running away to Texas to become a cocktail waitress. There’s a lesson here, people.
Use what you’ve got.
It doesn’t have to be REALLY dirty. It doesn’t have to be like, “whip out your woowoo and cream it up” dirty. But it’s WHIPPED CREAM, for Christ’s sake. A little “taste the creamy goodness” wouldn’t kill them.
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You’re right, it does sell itself …
Maybe I’m in the wrong business.
This all goes back to something I say frequently: Know your target market. (Intimately.)
Now I’m going to go have coffee and… uh… try to not think about whipped cream and women in power suits.
@ James — Monday just got a little more interesting.
“whip out your vagina and cream it up”
I just spat coffee all over my monitor. That’s easily the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Kudos.
WHERE did you get that picture. It’s brilliant. And is the cream real or photoshop?
My day job has been dreadful today, but this post is helping me turn it around. One huge fit of giggles plus a feeling of gratitude that at least I don’t have to wear pantyhose. Phew!
P.S. I would pay cash moh-nay to read the taglines you and Tei cooked up. When I grow up I want to be writers like you guys.
The hell they don’t want racy! What brilliant market research told them that?
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Ok, so I am sitting at work in my cube, bust out laughing and almost wet myself. Of course, the prarie dogging begins and before I know it my manager is at my desk wondering what the commotion is about. I let her read it (because I know she would appreciate it, would not recommend this if you don’t know your boss). Next thing I know, she is almost in tears and so I must send a great THANK YOU to you Naomi. You have just taken OFFCON from status 3 back to the normal 5. I think I am going to print out that picture and put it up on my wall, just to have a little laugh every once in a while.
@ Sal — OK, I have to be honest. Jack’s watching a Diego DVD about rescuing prairie dogs right now, and I’m like, SHE’S WATCHING THE SAME VIDEO! AT WORK! HOW COOL?
I have Diego on the brain. I need help.
I kinda understand what the client is saying.
If I’m sitting at home in my sweats covered in dog hair and kid barf, and a sexy whip cream ad is in my Ladies Journal of Housekeeping or whatever, I might be a little put off.
Self esteem, eye rolling, yet another “to do” on my list (shit, now I have to be sexy too?) , these are all possible reactions. I might have to take a look around my living room and say “These folks have no f—ing clue.”
It’s possible. Depends on my mood. You’d prob be fine if I saw it on a weekend. I’d be all like “RAWR lets go get some whip cream.” Today? Not so much.
@Naomi – I just saw your post on Put Things Off about the OFFCON. Sorry to confuse. My daughter loves Dora and Diego. We will go shopping and she sees a t-shirt or something and immediately busts out into song and dance. BTW, I wish I was watching Diego right now, things would be a lot more entertaining if I were.
oh and PS: Say Click! Take a pic!
I love it! – Thanks for putting a chuckle in my day! I think I will get some tonight…
Clearly these people are idiots. Who the hell do they think is watching daytime soaps? Reading romance and erotica novels? The lesson in this is: never let an undiagnosed case of madonna/whore syndrome get in the way of your marketing. These people know NOTHING. They are running on assumptions, which is like driving on fumes.
Good thing you can’t hardly fuck up selling whip cream, because if it were anything else, they’d be out of business.
@ Allena — I do see your point. I’m thinking something a little more double meaning. Maybe something between “stop cleaning the cat litter and be sexy, you failure, you!” and “Whipped cream is ONLY FOR COFFEE, you dirty whore”.
I think I like Scottsdale Realtor’s line….”Get Some!” HAAHAA that was great!
Heh, Sal made me laugh the most :) That would be a great line. “Get some tonight!”
But seriously, what does whipped cream have to do with sex anyway? After all it’s only beat up cream from tits, right?
@ Lodewijk — I’m going to suggest that:
“Beat up cream from tits. Cow tits, that is.”
That’ll sell like hotcakes.
Lodewijk needs to go and rent 9 1/2 weeks, Kim Basinger will show him all about “what’s up with sex and whip cream.”
I am now officially so old and pitiful that I see whipped cream and think, Who cares about the sex, gimme some waffles.
Shoot me now please.
This is the funniest blog post I’ve read in a long time. I was grinning at the headline in my RSS reader, just like the rest of the world would do if they saw it.
Which was the whole point. Good advice!
http://www.franklarosa.com/vinyl/BigImg/wc.jpg
Hmm . . . so if I change the photo on my blog from my face shot to me in bikini (with whipped cream or not), will I have more readers?
Know the reader INTIMATELY? What are you talking about, James?
Ahhh, ye of dirty mind… I definitely meant the intimate that means “to know closely”.
Not that you’ll believe me ;)
Hmm, maybe I should’ve added one more smiley to my comment ;) That picture Bill linked to, sure gives another meaning to marrying in white :P
Hey, you can run to Texas without becoming a waitress!
LK
@ Leonard — Don’t lie.
Next they’ll try to tell you kids don’t like silly noises.
Naomi,
Not that I didn’t sit and LMAO reading this, not that I take offense at a little racy. Heck, I instigate it as much as possible.
But, can I be the devil’s advocate for just a sec and say that it’s going to very, very much depend on where these barely-there double entendres run, whether I’m going to find them funny—or a chore I have to try not to explain to my kid—as the mother in the suit?
Run them someplace I’m going to see while I’m alone or in appropriate company (mag I don’t let the kids at anyway, late enough television for Cialis ads to run, etc…), okay.
Run them during the evening news, or put them on the packaging so some pimply checkout boy gives me just one raised eyebrow when it’s REALLY for my mother-in-law’s pumpkin pie, I’m not going to remember them fondly.
Can’t stand the prepackaged stuff anyway. Fresh only. I whip my own. ;)
Regards,
Kelly
Naomi, I’ve been reading your blog for a few days now and not only have laughed my ass off, but I’m learning a great deal, too. My site is a static site, not a blog. However, you’ve helped me clarify my direction and figure out a few things about my site that I was diddling over.
Of course, I also subscribed. :) Couldn’t resist. Wonder why?
And whipped cream for other than coffee? You mean banana splits, or sundaes, right? Right? ;-) This also applies to chocolate syrup. Not that I know anything about that…..
How about:
“Whipped cream. For all your vaginal dairy needs.”
No charge.
That was the funniest thing I’ve read on internets in a long time.
Speaking as a stay at home wife myself – I have to admit I’m not particularly turned on by whipped cream, for any of it’s uses. I’m actually scared of it. There is a can in my fridge right now. When I see it all I can think of is getting fat.
Someone needs to address those psychological needs. Like, “Whipped cream, sure it’ll make you fat, but there’s more cushion for the pushin’!”
I don’t suppose “Infection in a can” would go over very well.
Ok, it’s officially official. After reading this blog for an ittybittywhile, with this post Naomi has become my new hero. (And its not just because my Grandma was named Naomi, either.)
BatGirl, you were the first to show me that girls can indeed kick some serious ass, but never did you riff on selling whipped cream like this. :)
So I guess I’m the only one who thinks of whipped cream and its apparent REALLY HOTTTTT sexual connotations as an invitation to a yeast infection?
Mmmm, yeast infections. Now that’s really hot.
OK, at the risk of making this degenerate even further — and let’s be frank, that’s why you’re here anyway — you people are so fucking uncreative when it comes to the use of whipped cream in a sexual capacity. The vagina reference was merely a starting point and an excuse to use the word “vagina” on a business blog. There are plenty of other places whipped cream can go that are not prone to infection.
Did nobody see the Friends episode with Monica and the 7 erogenous zones?
Jesus. I need to start a sex blog for you people.
Oh, and @ Kristen — Welcome. You came on a good day. :)
All these comments and not one person noticed that it’s a SwiffER not a Swiffa?
(I don’t use one either, so you’re in good company. ;) )
I think melovney had a great tagline with: “what’s up with sex and whip cream?” Just ask the question and let the housewives or working moms answer it. Someone will thank you.
Just for you Naomi, I’ll throw down a few that avoid the vaginal:
Whipped cream… Like icing on the cake, only not on the cake.
Lay it down like you whipped it yourself.
Open up a can of whipped cream on someone tonight.
Honey, where’s the whipped cream?
And while you all go off on the sex angle, what about the drug culture? How about “make your family smile with whipped cream! Free nitrous in every can.”
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“whipped cream: frosting muffins for over 30 years.”
Hmm . . . I’m a total stranger to copywriting, but I know the word “love” sells, so how about:
Whipped cream: Top off your love.
or
Decorate your love with the whip.
[...] Naomi already documented the difficulties I was having writing taglines for this company, because the marketing guy, who is [...]
[...] said that you can sometimes get paid $200 an hour to write taglines for whipped cream. I’m assuming that any bum off the street can’t just waltz in and do that, but even to [...]