By now I’m sure you’ve probably seen the Poise commercial that has a woman – a mother – in a PTA meeting or some such, talking about “Sam”. How “Sam knows how to treat a woman”, and how she has “Sam in her pants right now”. I’m not going to link to that video on my blog – I won’t advertise for them, or play anything so vile on my website.

Haven’t seen it yet? Well, don’t go looking for it on YouTube while your kids are around. Or your parents. Or your husband. Or anyone else for that matter.

While it comes across as a low-budget, low-brow soft porn work up, it’s actually a commercial for LBL, or light bladder leakage. Oh, I’m not kidding.

Trouble is, while LBL is a problem for many, many women, and these products are necessary, what Poise has done to promote it has completely shifted the focus away from the problem, and made it a vulgar poster child of marketing gone very wrong. Truly, the advertising firm they brought in to whip up this tripe should be fired immediately. The brainchild who works for said ad agency should be keel-hauled. Ok, just fire him too. Him? It had to have been a man, frankly, and a young one just out of college at that. No woman of any age, with any semblance of class, would come up with something like that.

Now, I’m no prude, folks. I’ve seen a lot of eyebrow raising things in my day, and it doesn’t tend to bother me. Until you drag kids into it.

Kids, you say? How so? Couple things right off the top of my head:

A. This vulgar woman is sitting in a PTA meeting in a classroom, dripping innuendo.
B. This smut is being shown on family channels, during the day and into the evening. I even saw several comments that they had been aired on Nick Jr. (WHAAAAT??)

We don’t watch trash, TLC, or any sleazy, low class, offensive Honey Boo-Boo-esque crap shows in our house. When our kids are around, we generally watch shows that families should be able to enjoy together. Comedies, HGTV shows, stuff like that. And then this commercial comes on. Instantly, the adults are horrified, and the kids are confused and disgusted. Now that we know it, the TV is immediately muted and/or the channel is changed. You’ve made it so we have to keep the remote control in hand just to avoid having to watch it.

Think that’s going to sell a lot of pads, do you Poise?

You know that old saying; “No publicity is bad publicity”? Total BS. Oh sure, we’re talking about it. Good and loud. But we’re not pushing the brand, folks. We’re outraged, disgusted, and completely offended. That means – let me be clear, here, because you evidently don’t understand what you’ve done – that we won’t be buying your products. Not now, and not in the future. Poise has instantly become synonymous with sleaze.

I went to comment on the Facebook site – and found dozens of other similar complaints. Poise was responding to a lot of them – with a cookie cutter response:

“Hi Jennifer [Wendy, June, Amy, etc. etc.], While we fully respect your feedback, the focus of this commercial is to get people talking about a condition that affects 1 in 3 women, and a topic women typically shy away from. We’re trying to help women address LBL to help open up the conversation to the subject and the best solutions for it. We appreciate you sharing your comments, and will take into consideration for future Poise commercial programs.

and

“…Thanks so much for your feedback. We’ve traditionally taken a more lighthearted approach to addressing Light Bladder Leakage in our advertisements, which have helped women open up about the common condition. While some may raise an eyebrow on the way we are presenting this information, the truth is, our Super Absorbent Material (SAM) really does help women feel more confident about themselves.”

and

“…We appreciate your candid feedback. We intended for this commercial to be seen and interpreted by mature women who might experience Light Bladder Leakage. We purposefully placed this ad on networks aimed at adults. We regret that your child walked away with an understanding that was never our intent. Our research shows that most women are receptive to messages that take a lighthearted approach to Light Bladder Leakage, but we realize that not all women may have the same opinion with regards to this intimate topic. Again, thank you for sharing. We hear you and are keeping your feedback in mind for future.”

Ok… “Lighthearted”? Fail.

“Mature women”? Well, if you mean “older” women, maybe, but any older lady I know, any lady with maturity will not appreciate this offensive commercial. Also, since when is Nick Jr. a network aimed at mature adults?

Past all of that – the message is supposed to be about LBL. That is entirely lost due to the tack taken by Poise. This is a subject that women actually DO talk about. It’s a fact of life for a lot of people, and it’s not something anyone needs to be ashamed about, or avoid talking about. They didn’t need to go this route to sell their product. As far as I know there are really only 2 companies out there that sell stuff for LBL anyway – Tena and Poise. I suggest buying Tena from now on, if you’re in the market.

What a shame this previously upstanding company has resorted to the lowest possible tactic to garner attention. Offensive and disturbing on so many levels.

Edit: This post is garnering a lot of attention, but Kimberly Clark/Poise still think, for some reason, that this commercial is a hit, and people find it “overwhelmingly” acceptable. If you don’t, please voice your concern! Write to Kimberly Clark, write about it on Facebook, visit their Facebook site (you can comment without liking their page), and if you have a blog, write about it there, too. And leave me your comments, because I want to hear what you think! –Jenn