by Everett Reid
Early in this year TV Guide predicted that this would be, for advertisers, The Year of the Infant. Sure enough they were right. Just about all advertising except beer and cigarettes have made use of the most adorable little types ever seen, to push their products. Some of those ads are so adorable I'd rather see them than Miami Vice. That one of the ducky babe rolling toilet paper down stairs to the puppy. Every time I see that I go out and buy a six pack of toilet paper.
But infants have one hard-sell technic TV can't use successfully. That's crying. Of course TV can project a wailing kid but it can't be successful because it is only necessary to push the button to shut them off. Just like we're supposed to push the button to shut off the bad things we don't want the kids to see on TV. Now there is an example. How do the purveyors of tooth-rotting sugary cereals know that in spite of all the adult opposition to such garbage in the young un's diet they'll get their parents to buy it anyway. Because they use that great kid sales pitch. They yell.
How early they learn this technic. Almost as soon as they're born they want their ninny and they scream for it and get it. That sets the pattern. All they have to do to get their way is to make a disagreeable noise and – presto – here it is on a silver platter.
Now here is an example that is a continuation of the same. Husband comes home from work looking for a meal and TV wife says "It wouldn't hurt you to take me out to supper. I spend my days slaving away in this house making a nice home for you and the kids and what thanks do I get? You never take me out to a meal." See, the same thing. With the kid it's possible to pick it up and wham its bottom. Sort of hard to do that with a wife, so she gets her way by the same method she used as an infant: being unpleasant.
In between there is everything from a little red wagon to little red convertibles, all for shutting up some kind of crying.
Cute babes sometimes get what they want by pouting, which is silent crying. Cute things, not infants, have been known to cajole an old man out of quite valuable property just by pouting. Not only does pouting indicate that the babe is displeased – as does babyish crying – but it also makes the babe's lips irresistibly kissable, the second babyish sales pitch. A real double-barreled weapon.
Then there is nagging. That is the old standby of wives. It is a form of crying. Very unpleasant, too. Stores selling expensive women's clothes should give classes in nagging. I'm sure it would increase their sales amazingly. It might also increase the cases of wife abuse.
Then there is the sales pitch that uses blackmail. It's in the field of throw-away diapers. It shows diaper 'A' which is wet all the way through. The implied result is that the kid is wet and uncomfortable and will howl. Now here is diaper 'B.' By some magic it doesn't wet through. The kid stays nice and dry and as a result doesn't make that nasty racket. What does all this mean? It's just crying in reverse. In this ad the young one is saying "If you put diaper 'B' on my bottom I'll be dry and comfy and I'll coo like a dove, but if you put wet old diaper 'A' on me I'll scream most unpleasantly.
So here it is 1987. Maybe that will be The Year of the Old Folks. Maybe the advertisers will use pictures of jolly, smiling grandpas and grandmas to sell their products. Take that big seller via TV: sugary cereals. What harm could they do to old folks wearing dentures? Recently I saw a cereal ad in which adults were exclaiming over the delight of eating cereals they had abandoned as childish years ago.
Let's see, what else lends itself to a sales pitch by the elders? Electric blankets. Electric go carts. Corn patches.
So practice up your smiles, elder citizens. Be ready for the man with the camera. But I don't think it is necessary to smile all the time. I feel sure some of those happy kids cry when no one is looking.
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